Cyborgia
Page 8
The mother sat down. “It’s only you and me tonight. Father is working late, and Grandmother was feeling tired and is taking a nap.” The unworldly eyes rolled in their sockets as she regarded him. “Are you okay? Are you feeling sad? Are you missing your friends?”
This time Angus knew how to answer the question. “Yes. I especially miss Ivy.”
“Ivy! Of course! I forgot to tell you. Ivy woke up today. Mrs. Calloway says the doctors are running tests to find antibodies. They’re hoping they can make an antidote for the other children. I know you’ve missed your friends at school. It’s been several months since they all got sick. Don’t worry. We can add some happy particles to your supplement tonight, and you’ll be feeling better within an hour.” She touched the computer screen, and several icons appeared: MC, FC, AC, GC, and Add New.
“Maybe I’ll have a little happy, too,” she said as she touched MC. The next screen displayed three icons: Nutrition, Feeling, and Nutrition + Feeling. She selected the third icon, and the screen repainted again with a list of emotions. She touched Happy and Calm. The next screen displayed a handprint. The mother pressed her palm on the screen. The machine hummed, a capsule rolled down the bubblegum chute, and the initial screen reappeared. She popped the pill into her mouth and swallowed.
“Go ahead,” she said.
“No, thank you,” said Angus. His mom had told him never to take any medicine from strangers. This woman was his alter’s mother, but to him she was still a stranger. And he certainly wasn’t going to put anything in his body that he wasn’t sure about.
“Have you had anything since your morning supplement?” asked the mother.
Angus took an amino acid supplement every morning to help him focus in school. That and a multivitamin were the only two pills he took each day. He answered, “No.”
“Then take your evening supplement,” she said.
“What’s in it?” asked Angus.
The mother seemed perplexed. “What are you asking?”
“You want me to take a pill. I want to know what it is.”
“AC, you know all this,” answered the mother. “The composition of the capsule is different for each of us. The nutrition analyzer scans our palms and determines our individual protein, fat, carbohydrate, and caloric needs along with any vitamins or minerals we may be deficient in. The machine customizes each capsule.”
“So that’s the nutrition button?” asked Angus.
“Yes. The feeling button is different. You push the button for whatever feeling you want to have, and chemicals that affect your brain’s neurotransmitters are added to the supplement.”
Angus thought that all sounded very much like something Mrs. Clark would not allow.
“No, thank you,” he said.
“What’s that?” asked the mother.
“I said, no thank you. That’s not something I like to do.”
“You don’t want a happy feeling? Or you don’t want a calm feeling?”
“I don’t want any feeling that comes from a pill. I want to feel what I feel,” said Angus.
“Are you sure? You said you were depressed,” pushed the mother.
“No, I didn’t. You asked if I missed my friends, and I said I missed Ivy a little. I don’t need to take a pill for that! I’ll just go see her.”
“You can’t see her. She’s in the hospital.”
“Then I’ll go to the hospital.”
“She’s in quarantine. They won’t let you anywhere near her.”
“Why is she in quarantine?”
“Because of the virus! You know that. That’s why you haven’t been to school for months. So many of your school friends caught it. I don’t know how you escaped getting sick, but I’m certainly not letting you go to the hospital!”
“But I have to! I have to find Ivy!”
“You don’t have to find anyone,” said the mother. “Now, have your nutritional supplement.”
The weird eyes had turned red and were emitting wisps of smoke. Angus had seen a similar expression on his own mother’s face, and he knew that he was going nowhere until he had acted like a dutiful son. He looked at the screen of the nutrition machine. What was he supposed to press? AC were his initials, so he supposed that was his button. But what were MC, FC, and GC? Maybe Mother Clark, Father Clark, and Grandma Clark? He tentatively pressed the AC button. On the next screen, he pushed Nutrition.
“Only vitamins and minerals, right? No chemicals? No drugs?”
“No drugs. You’ll still feel sad. But you’ll have the nutrition your body needs.”
Angus was wondering why they didn’t simply eat dinner. He said, “Oven. Stove. Microwave.” Nothing popped out of the wall. Then he tried, “Refrigerator. Sink. Cupboard.” Nothing.
“What are you doing?” asked the mother.
“I was wondering if we could cook dinner or even just warm up some leftovers.”
“Dinner? What’s that? Have you been reading history books again?” She laughed. “I wouldn’t even know where to begin with that. And it would be so unsanitary and dangerous.” She shook her head. “Sometimes, I think you’ll say almost anything to shock me. Now, take your supplement.”
Angus reluctantly placed his palm on the computer screen. The machine spit out a capsule. Angus held it up to the glowing light of the ceiling. It was a clear capsule filled with a fine white powder. It looked like the amino acid supplement Mom gave him each morning at breakfast. He didn’t like to take pills, so Mom opened it and mixed the powder into a bowl of applesauce or yogurt. There would be none of that here, so he’d have to take the pill with water. Ugh.
“Could I have a glass of water, please?” he asked.
“A glass of water! Aren’t there enough sick children in town? We need to breed bacteria and mosquitoes in our house now? I’m telling you AC, enough stalling! Take your supplement.”
Angus didn’t know what had made her so angry. He tried again. “I can’t take this without something to wash it down with. It will get stuck in my throat.”
“Oh, why didn’t you say so? Straw,” she said. Angus heard the plop noise, and a clear straw popped through the surface of the table. Angus stared at it and looked at her. What was he supposed to do with that?
“Now what?” she asked.
Angus was afraid to ask. “How do I ...”
“You suck on it.”
Angus picked up the straw. It was flexible like the bedroom window had been and was sealed on both sides. If there was a hole, it was tiny. He sucked on the straw, and droplets of water dripped into his mouth. At this rate, he’d never have enough water to wash down a pill. Why couldn’t he have a glass of water?
He heard a giggle and looked up. The mother was leaning back in her chair, staring at the ceiling with a ridiculous smile on her face. Happy must be working. Luckily, she hadn’t noticed that his supplement was still on the table. He casually palmed it and stuffed it in his jeans pocket.
“I’m going to my room ... umm ... Mom,” he said.
She turned her head and smiled at him. Her eyes swirled around in their sockets. “Sleep well, honey. And no more of those history books. They’re giving you crazy ideas.”
“Door,” said Angus. He left the room. He stood in a longer room now, maybe a hallway. Like the other two rooms he’d been in, the entire room was gray with a soft light emanating from the ceiling. He was fast becoming sick of gray. He heard a rough “Maow.”
“Ivy!” he hooted and spun around. A shining, four-legged robot held a ball in its metal mouth. “What is that?” he asked. “Are you in there, Ivy?”
The robot repeated “Maow” from a voice box welded to its neck. Angus knelt down and examined the robot. He thought it was supposed to be an animal, a pet of sorts. It was built from scraps of disparate metals that had been polished to a glossy sheen. It had two different-sized triangular ears. Red LED lights glowed where eyes should have been. Its paws were three nuts wired into a clover shape and wrapped in rubber.
And Ivy was not inside this creature.
Angus reached out to take the ball from the robot’s mouth. A clumsily-engraved emblem on the creature’s side proclaimed it to be “CATT.” He traced the emblem: It was his own handwriting. Activated by the gentle stroking, the robot began to rumble like an idling scooter. The screws rattled as the robot shook.
“Is that supposed to be a purr?” asked Angus. He tossed the ball and the robot ceased purring and bounced along the gray floor to fetch it. It yipped from its voice box and wagged its PVC tail as it retrieved the ball. The robot dropped the ball at Angus’s feet, then ran to the stairway, whining.
“It’s like you’re trying to tell me something. What is it, robot? Do you want me to follow you?” asked Angus. The cat-dog yipped and jumped. It ran back to Angus and rubbed itself against his legs. He bent down to touch it, and it ran to the stairway again.
“Okay. I’ll follow you. Up the stairs?” Angus jogged up the stairs behind the robot and followed it back into the bedroom. The robot half leapt, half scrabbled on to the gray desk. It was nudging something at Angus.
“You know I’m not AC. I’m not your boy. You know that, right? I look like him. But I come from another world. A parallel world. Do you understand me?”
The robot began to purr and clanked from side to side on the desk around something. Angus looked at the desk. When he’d first transported himself to the room, he hadn’t noticed that there was a screen built into the desk. It must have gotten lost in the general grayness.
“Is this what you’re trying to show me?” The robot purred in response and twitched its PVC tail.
Angus touched the screen, and a virtual notebook opened. Angus sat on the chair and began to read.
12
The Lab
Mrs. Howitzer would love this guy. The notebook was a collection of detailed lab reports: introductions including hypotheses, procedures, results both graphed and in table format, brilliant conclusions. The kid was a science genius. But then, what else would you expect from a guy who built his own robot pet? His procedure and findings during the robot’s construction were beautiful to behold.
Angus looked down at CATT who was curled in an angular heap beside him and buzzing.
“Are you snoring?” asked Angus.
The robot raised its welded head, blinked two LED lights at him, and said, “Maow.”
“Look at me. I’m talking to a robot cat-dog,” said Angus. “Can you say anything other than meow? Why did you want me to read this?”
“Maow,” repeated the robot. It thumped its PVC tail on the floor, causing the gray surface to undulate gently.
“Your boy made you, didn’t he?”
The robot nuzzled his leg and whimpered.
“I don’t know what I’m supposed to do next. I have to find Ivy, but I don’t know where to begin. Is she the girl in the hospital? And if she is, how do I get there?”
Angus tried to stand, but the robot grabbed his leg and pulled him back into the chair.
“Hey, let go. What are you doing?” protested Angus.
The robot let go of his leg and butted the desk with its metal head. It blinked its red eyes at Angus, then pointed its head at the desk, PVC tail extended straight out in the other direction.
“I’m not done yet, huh? There’s something else you want me to read? Okay, since I haven’t figured out yet how to get to Ivy, I might as well.”
Angus moved his finger across the screen, turning virtual pages in the notebook. He skimmed experiment titles organized by date. The earliest experiments were along the lines of: “Effect of Various Dye Colors on Gray Polymer”, “Comparison of Insect Velocities on Gray Polymer,” and other experiments on clear polymer.
As the dates advanced, the titles of the experiments indicated that AC had grown bored of polymers and had begun investigating insects: “Scent Glands of the Cockroach”, “Territorial Behavior of Red Ants”, and the alarming “Effect of Leg Loss on Insect Speed” and “Flight Patterns of Tethered Blue Bottle Flies”. The last documented experiment was dated eight months ago. It was named merely “Ivy”.
“Is this what you wanted me to see?” Angus asked CATT. “The experiment called Ivy? I can’t understand you, but you can understand me, can’t you? This is going to help me, isn’t it?” The robot creaked back on its metallic haunches, blinked at Angus, and buzzed softly.
Angus turned back to the notebook and read:
One month ago, Ivy Calloway was discovered lying on a floor in her bedroom. Beside her was an empty glass vial. She was breathing but unconscious and remains so. It is my belief that she ingested a substance stored in the vial that resulted in her coma. By reverse engineering the residue swabbed from the vial, I intend to create an antidote that will reverse all ill effects.
What followed this introduction caused Angus’s mouth to drop open. It seemed that his alter had indeed reverse engineered the substance. But he hadn’t stopped there. He had tested it—and not on insects. He had given it to classmates. They’d been so eager to try something new, something liquid, they had drunk the solution.
“Oh, gosh. No,” said Angus as he read the results. There was no conclusion to the lab report. There was no end. The experiment was still happening.
“Where are they, CATT?” asked Angus. “If you can understand me, show me where they are.”
The robot scrabbled on to the desk and nudged the screen again.
“I know. I read it already! What do I do?”
The robot teetered back into a sitting position and raised one of its front legs. As it stretched out a nut and rubber paw, CATT reminded Angus of Sir Schnortle begging for attention.
“I can’t play right now! I have to do something. I have to find Ivy and fix AC’s mess,” said Angus.
CATT growled at Angus and let out a squeaky bark. The LED eyes blinked, stopped, blinked. “Wait. Are you trying to tell me something?” CATT purred. The eyes kept blinking.
“You are. Are you using a code? You are. You’re using a code. What code?”
Sometimes the red lights blinked quickly and sometimes they blinked slowly. “It’s like a computer code, isn’t it? Zeroes and ones. But what is zero? A fast blink or a slow one? And even if I can figure it out, it doesn’t mean anything to me.”
CATT growled at Angus. “Not computer code? Is that what you mean? When you growl, I’m wrong, and when you purr, I’m right. Right?”
The robot buzzed.
“Means yes. So you’re using a code, right?”
The robot buzzed.
“Is it a computer code?”
The robot growled and stretched its paw over the screen.
“No. So, does it have something to do with the computer screen? With what I read?”
The robot buzzed.
“So it’s a code that tells me what to do. Fast and slow. Short and long. Short and long. That’s it! Short and long. Is it Morse code?”
The robot buzzed.
“It’s Morse code! Great. I used to know that. I’m not sure if I remember all of it. Dad and I played around with codes and cryptography during spring break last year. It’s been awhile. Shoot, there’s no pencil here. I’ll have to keep it all in my head. Umm ... go slow okay?”
Buzz.
“Show me what your short looks like. Okay, got it. Now a long. Okay. What’s the first letter? Short, short, short, short. Let me think ... Is it H?”
Buzz.
“Okay. First letter H. Give me the next one. Short. Long. Anything else?”
Growl.
“So that’s ... think, think ... A?”
Buzz.
“So, we have H – A. Ha. Doesn’t mean anything yet. Next letter. Long, short. Easy. That’s an N.”
Buzz.
“H – A – N. And why are you wiggling your foot? What does that have to do with anything? Next letter. Long. Short. Short. B! H – A – N –B. Wait. That doesn’t spell anything.”
Growl.
“I know, I know it’s wrong. I just said so, didn’t I? H – A – N – C is nothing. What about H – A – N –D. Hand.”
Buzz.
“Hand? Is that it?”
The robot creaked its head to the side and stared, LED lights glowing steadily. It stretched out its paw again.
“You want me to put my hand out.” Angus stretched his hand over the computer screen. “Why am I doing this?” And then he remembered. He’d had to press his hand on to the nutrition machine’s screen before it dispensed his personalized capsule. He lay his palm on the desktop screen. When he removed it, the desk began to transform.
CATT clattered off the desk and ran to the door. It pushed the door closed with its nose and leaned against it as though it were preventing anyone from entering or leaving the room.
Out of the gray surface that had been a nondescript desk popped beakers and flasks and vials, Bunsen burners and centrifuges, pipettes and titrators and homogenizers, three varieties of microscopes, and a shelf that held a collection of mayonnaise jars full of insects.
“Whoa,” said Angus. He peered at the jars. Each one was labeled with a name. “Billy Roberts? Why would AC name a cockroach after Billy?”
The insect was huge and still. “I think Billy’s dead,” said Angus. He picked up the jar and tapped the side. The cockroach sprang to life and scrabbled at the side of the jar, antennae waving madly about its head.
Angus plunked the jar down on the desk. “What’s this?” he said to no one in particular as he spotted a small circuit board attached to the top of the jar. A tiny joystick protruded from the center of the board. Angus rotated the joystick gently with the tip of his finger.