Metamorphosis Alpha 2

by Craig Martelle

  Then the robot dropped through the trap door. It landed on its head and fell over, twitching. Some part of it was still functional, but judging by the blackened hole in its torso, I didn’t expect it to get up and fight for our freedom.

  Then Geo appeared, swinging his legs into the workshop and closing the door after him as he climbed down. Blood stained the left arm of his coveralls, but he didn’t seem impaired by the injury. Judging by the grin on his face, I would guess he didn’t feel it.

  “You’re injured. Shall I render aid?” I asked. The concern about what would become of me without him spurred the question. That, and anticipation built on experience. I had patched up his injuries in the past. It was usually the first thing he had me do upon his return.

  “Not this time. Get that ‘bot on the table,” he said. He pulled off his boots and coveralls, then rolled up the sleeve of his shirt to check the damage. My body was already in motion, lifting the robot without difficulty, and laying it out on the table.

  I took a moment to examine it. It was an IV model, similar to my own line, but made for more delicate work. The multi-tool built into its left arm would make it ideal for detailed work with circuitry, or taking apart computers for recycling. Other than the tool, it was a mirror image of the AVs, down to its brassy exterior and humanoid build. I could hear its coolant system bubbling inside its torso, a sure sign of a leak. It would overheat and shut down permanently very soon.

  As I looked at my fellow robot, Geo pulled out a first aid kit and cleaned up his wound. It was surprisingly shallow, considering all the blood, and a simple gauze bandage was enough to treat it.

  “Well? What do you think?” Geo asked. He scrubbed at the stain on his coveralls. He wasn’t a man who cared about his appearance, but he said it was unwise to walk around smelling of blood. There were more predators on Deck Sixteen than most people expected, or so he said.

  “The damage is irreparable. There is a coolant leak that we do not have time or supplies to repair. It will cease to function soon.” I looked at the IV unit’s eyes. They were half-orbs like mine, but their lights flickered like tiny flames in a heavy wind.

  “I do not think I can repair it,” I said. “If you order it, I will try. But I do not think I will succeed.”

  “It ain’t here to be repaired. You’re to break it down for parts. Keep that arm intact, though. It’s for you.”

  Of course, that statement was hardly a surprise, considering where my left leg had come from. I had been informed that my power source had come from a security robot, and my eyes were not original to my body. Geo had done more damage than he’d originally thought, but now, I was fully functional.

  “Why?” I asked.

  “To replace your left arm. I need you able to handle fine work. It’s no surgical tool, but it’s better than what you’ve got,” Geo said. He finished scrubbing at the blood and pulled the coveralls back on.

  “I have been able to perform my duties so far. An upgrade might be redundant, with risk of damaging the original frame.”

  That was technically true, but my series had been designed to be modular. It was low risk to swap out parts with similar builds, such as the IV. Yet I was reluctant. This was an act of cannibalism, for no gain that I could see.

  “Maybe, but you can’t do what I’ve got in mind. I need you to do a little surgery, and you can’t do what I need with those things.” He gestured at my pincers, then he retrieved the stray metal arm from under the table. “You’ll be putting this on me next. It’s time I got some upgrades of my own.”

  I watched as he pulled more items from the bag - syringes, white boxes marked with red crosses, a bottle of pills. He stowed them in one of his bins, one by one, looking each item over before putting it away.

  The IV unit twitched, pulling my attention away from Geo. They didn’t have real intelligence any more than I had before Geo came along, but it had to understand us, and know what was coming. Even if it had no emotional response to its own destruction, I didn’t want it to feel death coming as it lost one piece at a time.

  I rolled the body over and pried its back panel open. As expected, its inside was blackened and burned. Dark green fluid dripped onto its dying power source and covered its interior with slime. Two wires connected that battery to the CPU. They came out easily, and the IV went still.

  It wouldn’t know or understand my act of mercy, but I suspected that Geo wouldn’t either. I bent over the robot’s shell and began to take it apart, sorting useful parts from junk, and setting aside the IV’s left arm for myself.

  #

  Geo sat up slowly, exhaling his pain as the sheet fell away from his body. His skin had turned a new shade of white, different even from the days when he’d eaten food from the wrong can, and I’d thought I saw my freedom coming. That was caused by illness - this, by pain.

  Humans were not made to be modular. While I had adjusted to the IV’s arm with little difficulty, we both knew a human wouldn’t have it so easy. Geo had gone further on his expeditions than ever before, seeking out ancient drugs that would put him under while I operated, and still others to help control the pain.

  Now his arm was gone, replaced by a wonder of chrome and steel. It had been made to resemble a well-muscled human arm, but was considerably stronger. Geo drew back his lips, baring his teeth, and the hand closed into a fist, then opened again. He looked at me, both eyes surrounded by purple bruises, and his new crystal eye spun itself into focus.

  “Seems to work.”

  He grunted, and lowered himself from the table. I reached out to hold him upright, but he waved me off. I could hear him grinding his teeth as he took each step, his stomach gurgling, but he stayed upright for the three steps required to get to his bed then sank down, chest heaving, to lie on his bed.

  “Looks like I’ll live,” He muttered, though I thought it was far too soon to determine any such thing. He might turn out to be allergic to the implants, or become infected. I wished to point that out to him, but he’d already ordered not to bring up potential negatives, that he already knew what they were.

  Still. I was concerned, and thought I was right to be so.

  “Well done, Avie. Thank you.”

  My algorithms hummed. His praise spun my processes up into the green - beyond green into the blue, as if there were such a thing. This was delight, I thought. It seemed unfathomable to me, that five short words would do this to me.

  If I still had Norbert, I thought, this wouldn’t happen to me.

  “You should take some fluids. There was substantial blood loss.” He’d told me to remind him of such things. He neglected his human body, often forgetting to take in the right fuel, or enough fluids to keep himself lubricated. It was a constant challenge for me to convince him to eat, without being ordered into silence.

  “I’ll do it later.” He closed his eye, and the orb went still before he reached out and turned off the lights. “Get rid of the garbage, will you?”

  “Yes, Geo. Sleep well.”

  His only answer was a tired mumble, so I collected the bin with the biological waste - pieces of flesh, and the severed arm, along with the blood-stained rags I’d used to clean up after the surgery. The entire room needed sterilization, but there weren’t enough supplies to do so.

  I took my burden outside, and stood on the roof. The shipping container was part of a cube-shaped collection of its kind, insulating it from the outside. The sides of the block were sheer enough that almost nothing could climb it, keeping the scavengers away along with most robots.

  If I dumped the bin over the side, it would be licked clean before Geo woke up. That would be the easiest way to dispose of it, but I hesitated.

  Geo’s arm had lost much of its color, but it was still recognizable as his with the fine black hairs that stretched across the forearm, and his split thumbnail. Decades of grease had ground into his pores, dimming his angel tattoo, and permanently staining the cracks and wrinkles in his tired old skin.

  I
thought of this arm being torn apart by animals, and eaten as if it had never had a purpose beyond being meat. I was aware, alive, because of this hand. It was not food. It was something to be honored.

  The drop to the deck was considerable, but my frame absorbed the impact easily. After I confirmed that no damage had been done, I started to walk north. The stacks of shipping containers rose up on either side of me, forming nearly identical walls, if it weren’t for the serial numbers painted on their sides. Some of them had holes carved into their sides, and fearful eyes that peered out at me as I passed below. Now that I understood fear, I walked by as if I had not seen them.

  Small animals sniffed after me, interested in my burden, but they didn’t approach. When I turned my head to look at them, they vanished into the shadows. I saw a hint of a tail, sometimes, others nothing at all. I didn’t engage my infrared. They were no threat to me. I didn’t have to see them to know that.

  After an hour of walking, my path ended at a metal wall, with a small door that had been forced open long ago. Inside was a small, square room. It was empty, save for the table, and a door in the wall. Measuring a meter square, it stood at chest height.

  I pressed the button to open the door, then placed Geo’s hand and flesh in the incinerator. Another button closed the door before a deadly red glow filled the chamber. The arm turned black, then collapsed on itself to leave a pile of ashes. Then the ashes were sucked into a vent, and were gone.

  I looked at the space where Geo’s flesh used to be. That pile of ashes had seemed too small, even though I knew the formulas that said, logically, that the correct amount had been left behind. The math didn’t account for what Geo had created with that hand, the work he had done. It didn’t account for his presence.

  I stood there for a long time, searching my memories for a formula that would account for the difference that intelligence or personality should make, until I recalled that Geo was alone, and when he woke up, he would need my help.

  He hadn’t ordered me to return. I was sure that was an oversight born of the pharmaceuticals in his system, but still - he would be helpless until he healed. He needed me - and that was enough to send me home again.

  #

  The security robot had been patrolling the walkway outside our home for hours, making a slow circle where the two walkways intersected. Something had disrupted its routine and drawn it our way. I blamed explorers from the higher decks, making messes, and leaving those of us that lived here to clean up after.

  Geo and I lurked out of sight. He didn’t want the robot to realize anyone was up here. That was why he’d built the workshop at the center, the way he had. Robots and travelers passing by would have no reason to climb this block. We were almost guaranteed privacy, and security, as long as we didn’t make too much noise.

  The security robots had always ignored me; the AV series had been created for labor and security support. We were, technically, made to be allies. Mostly we avoided each other. I hadn’t encountered one of this type since Geo had found me, but I wasn’t concerned for myself.

  It would not ignore Geo the way it would me. He had a wristband that sometimes made some of the robots on our level ignore or obey him, but it didn’t work on the security bots. If it saw him, it would try to kill him - either because the wristband was defective, or he had attacked too many security bots in the past.

  Geo stood back and out of sight, muttering under his breath. He had been pacing, but now he was hovering over my shoulder, leaning out to try and peer over the edge.

  “It’s no good. You’ll have to destroy it,” he hissed.

  “Perhaps it will leave on its own,” I suggested. “We could wait it out.”

  I had said this four times already, and each time, he’d dismissed me. He hadn’t given me any commands yet, though, and so I was stalling, working on a plan to get rid of the robot without destroying it. Of all the models I knew, the security robots were the closest to being intelligent. I’d seen cunning in them that even Geo hadn’t matched. Even if they weren’t intelligent by human standards, they were near enough, in my mind.

  “It’s been hours. If this was a glitch, it would have returned to its home territory by now.” Geo drew back from me, then began to pace again. “I can’t wait forever. I have things to do, Avie. Work to be done.”

  “I could lure it away,” I said.

  I didn’t care much for that idea, either. It would leave Geo alone, and I didn’t know how to make the robot follow me without attacking it. I wasn’t confident in my ability to fight it, or survive if I earned its wrath. My upgrades were for more practical purposes than fighting, even if Geo seemed sure that I’d be fine.

  “No way. It’s primed to go on the offensive, I can tell. Wish those blasted mutants would stay on their own level.” He spat over the side. “It’ll detect us eventually, and I’m not waiting for that to happen. I want you to take it out, Avie. I won’t ask a third time.”

  He was asking, I realized. He’d told me what he wanted without triggering my programming. It felt less invasive, and more like I had a choice. It was an interesting feeling, even though part of me was sure that he was only creating the illusion of choice. Why he bothered, I couldn’t say, though.

  “I would still like to try. If I fail, I will destroy it,” I countered. “Please. Let me try.”

  I counted the seconds as Geo looked at me. His frown had deepened when I said please, as if wondering where I’d learned it. Thirty seconds went by before he took a heavy breath, then threw up his hands.

  “Fine. You can try, but I want that ‘bot gone by end of day. Come back here when you’re done.” He returned to the trap door and pulled it shut behind him, leaving me free to act.

  I walked along the top of the shipping containers until I came to another ledge, then climbed down. There was a gap between containers here, formed when a stack of them had been removed from the block. The resulting alley was dark, a favorite hiding place for scavengers and predators.

  When I reached the ground, the gap was empty. The distant scrabble of nails on metal told me that the scavengers had retreated, and a sweep of infrared confirmed that I was alone. I stepped out onto the main walkway. I’d convince the robot to leave on its own, somehow. Perhaps I could convince it that mutants were trying to break into the freight elevators again. I was sure I detected real rage in the security robots when it came to enemies from the upper floors.

  It noticed me almost immediately, and swept me with its scanners. I prepared to broadcast my story to it, but before I could, it let out an angry squawk, then charged.

  I was frozen for three quarters of a second. That was far too long, but my shock was real. I’d never had anything to fear from this model. At worst, it would ignore me. But now it was howling its siren, declaring to every security robot in range that it had found an intruder.

  I was the intruder, when I should have been as familiar to it as one of its own assembly line.

  Except that I had been modified; I was out of spec, upgraded beyond all recognition. I had been counting on my own neutrality as a sort of invisibility, and so I hadn’t brought a single weapon with me. I’d assumed that being armed would endanger me, make the security robot consider me a threat.

  Now I had nothing to fight with — so I retreated, hoping the power in my new legs made me faster than my pursuer. I heard the angry hum of its weapons charging as I dodged around a corner and leaped up, grabbing onto the lip of a container and then hauling myself out of sight. I shut down all motor functions, keeping only my sensors alive as the security robot tore past my hiding place.

  I waited, but the security robot never circled back. When sixty minutes had passed, I determined that my task was complete. I powered up my body and returned to the workshop - victorious, but heavy with the awareness of just how much I had been changed.

  #

  Geo recovered quickly. He said it was due to my skill as a surgeon, but while that was pleasant to hear, it was his own strong w
ill that dragged him back into health. Once he’d recovered enough, he started on other treatments. He took drugs to strengthen and harden his muscles, so that he could wield the full strength of his new arm. He injected microscopic technology to strengthen his bones as well.

  He was pleased with the change, but I did not relax until his graying skin turned pink again, and the angry red flesh around his new arm had turned the same ivory-white as the rest of his body.

  While we both waited for his recovery, I built a cart to his specifications. I cut open a shipping crate, creating a square bed just long enough that Geo could lie down on it. Then I welded an axle with two wheels to the bottom and added a pair of long poles with grips, for pulling. Then, when Geo was recovered, we packed the cart with supplies and went on my first expedition.

  We traveled for weeks. When we encountered hostile robots, Geo destroyed them. He found that I hesitated too much in combat, that he couldn’t rely on me, so he used me as a decoy or a distraction while he did the work himself. Once the enemy robots were destroyed, I dismantled them and added them to the growing collection in our cart.

  Geo was hunting for new parts for me, and more prosthetics designed for a human nervous system. We took turns pulling the cart; Geo liked to use his new strength, and pulling the heavy cart was a way to do that. When he pulled, I walked behind, watching Geo for signs of distress, and trying to watch for danger.

  My vigilance only increased when we took a freight elevator to a higher level, and ranged even further in Geo’s search for new parts.

  “Open that door.” Geo hefted his laser rifle, taking aim at the red cross at the center of the portal. He was smiling.

  I was sure I knew why. The door was painted white, with a red cross at the center. There would be pharmaceuticals here, and medical equipment. This was why we had left Deck Sixteen. Geo craved more upgrades. He sought perfection in both of us, but he worried about his own physical failings constantly.