“You can’t just eliminate fear.”
He looked up from the ground and met her eyes. “I need to speak with Miss Hawthorn. Alone please.” He waited a moment for everyone to leave, but Roger seemed stuck in place, watching the exchange between Hazel and Bracken as if it were a bad train wreck. “Clear the room!” he yelled.
Roger jumped at the noise of Bracken’s harsh voice, and one of Bracken’s guards motioned for him to follow the others out.
When the doors closed behind them, it was just Hazel and Bracken. The tension in the room felt like a dark cloud of smoke that surrounded Hazel, choking her, rendering her incapable of speech. She turned slightly to look at Des on one of the screens. This particular view showed a close-up of his face.
He was incredible. Every part of him was gray in color. Hazel didn’t know what color future models might be painted, but Des was all he would ever be. He had four limbs—two long legs and two arms that would swing slightly when he walked. His movements were so human, though he almost looked like the bare skeleton of a person. Every metal inch of him consisted of a high-entropy alloy that made him as light as aluminum but stronger than titanium. Such a robot was meant for combat—something that could take a few bullets.
But it was his face that made him seem human. It was plated with the alloy too. Des’ face was designed to make interaction with humans more pleasant. Covering the alloy in a light gray, flesh-like rubber compound that gave him lifelike expressions, his skin was meant to emulate human skin. His lips would move with his speech. He might frown if he was upset or smile if he was happy—Hazel had yet to test any of this with him, but in the simulation there were grimaces, frowns, looks of worry. Even now, he seemed nervous, his forehead crinkled, his eyes darting from one place to another.
And he was also equipped with simulated nerve endings. Though he didn’t feel pain like a human might feel pain, he would be able to tell if something felt unpleasant. They were electronic receptors interlaced throughout his entire body. He could feel temperatures, textures, a breeze. All-in-all he was an amazing machine.
“You don’t get what we’re doing here, do you?” Bracken asked calmly.
“I do get it,” Hazel answered, not looking away from the screen.
“Then tell me why the robot is too afraid to climb a tower.”
“I tried to tell you, but you got angry and cleared the room.”
“That’s because I’m going to correct you and I’m not sure you want me to do that in front of your colleague.”
“Correct me how?”
Bracken took a step forward. “Look at me.”
Hazel didn’t have to do what he said. She didn’t want to do what he said out of pure rebellion. Turning would almost feel like a betrayal to herself—almost like she was giving up, letting him win.
“Look at me when I’m talking to you.”
Hazel spun in her chair. She felt blood rush to her cheeks. She didn’t know where it came from, but the words spewed from her lips before she could stop herself. “Who do you think you are, my father? What gives you the right to talk to me that way?”
“I am your superior!”
“You are nothing of the sort,” Hazel said through heavy breaths. “I didn’t join the Mainland Military. I’m not under your official command. You are not my superior because you know nothing about robots, and you truly know nothing about human emotions!”
“Enlighten me.” He took another step forward.
Nervousness replaced her anger as he towered over her.
“Prototype D showed fear because he had never been put in a situation like that before,” Hazel said. “You have to treat him like you would any other person.”
“He’s not a person.”
“It doesn’t matter. He has emotions.”
“It has emotions,” Bracken said. “You keep calling it a he.”
“Fine. It has to be treated like a he because that’s how good the program is. If you throw a person in a simulator and put him through what you just put the prototype through he would have frozen too.”
“But it’s not a person, and we have the power to change that. Answer my question: why did you program Prototype D with fear?”
“Because fear is what keeps us alive. Without it, your robots will be reckless and make poor decisions. I don’t think that’s what you want if the robots are going to fight a war for you.”
Bracken took a couple of steps toward Hazel, but moved past her in the last second. He leaned forward and rested his hands on the desk in front of him as he stared at the close-up of Des.
“The president put me in charge of this project,” Bracken said. “If all goes well, it means the lives of our soldiers will be saved. It means we can put an end to this conflict with the Outlanders and get on with our lives. You are a very small part of a very large picture. The sooner you understand that the better.”
“I’m just trying to do my job,” Hazel said.
“We don’t have to have robots with emotions,” Bracken continued. “I can win a war with a small number of these things, I don’t care if they can think for themselves. If I have to go emotionless, that’s what I’m going to do.”
“But that’s not what your boss wants,” Hazel said. “That’s not what the president wants.”
Bracken sighed. “I know.”
Hazel’s features softened a little as Bracken stood in silence. This was a rare human moment for him—he looked vulnerable. His shoulders sagged and his eyes looked tired. There was no doubt that he felt pressure from above, but that didn’t mean he always had to spread it out to the rest of them. She looked at the same face-filled screen. “I can’t simply erase the emotion of fear. Fear is connected to too many other emotions. To simply erase it would screw up the entire program.”
“You have two days,” Bracken said suddenly. He stood straight and like a flash his defeated expression was gone, replaced by his natural angry look.
“I can’t do it in two days! A month maybe…”
“Two days, or the program is scrapped,” he said. “I already have a new robot ready and waiting.”
“A new one? I thought Des was the new robot.”
“Prototype D is just that. A prototype. And he was supposed to be the last one. Thanks to you we’re unofficially moving on to Prototype E.” He held up a finger. “And this one will work. I can’t have entire squads of machines that are too scared to go into battle.”
“You have to train them to control their fear,” Hazel said.
“That’s your job. Write it into the programming. Get rid of it.”
Hazel shook her head. “If you just took the time, Mainland would be invincible. You would never lose a soldier!”
“Two days,” Bracken repeated, walking toward the door. He spun around quickly and pointed at the screen. “I’m also putting an order in to wipe that robot’s memory clean. You’ll put your revised program in it first.” He started to walk out the door.
“No,” Hazel said.
Bracken stopped in the doorway. “Excuse me?”
“Wiping his memory would be the same as killing him.”
Bracken shook his head as he pushed the door further. “What bothers me the most is that you’re serious.” He glanced up at the screen again. “It’s a robot, Miss Hawthorn. Wipe its memory. Fix your program.” He started to leave, but stopped short again. “And another thing, stop being such a civilian. You might not be a soldier, but you still have to follow my orders. You work for me.”
He left the room, leaving the door open behind him.
As Hazel looked at the screen and watched Des’ expression, she knew immediately that she wasn’t going to follow Bracken’s orders. She had given Des emotions. Life. She wasn’t just going to wipe it away like it was nothing. If it were up to Bracken, Des would be dead by the afternoon. Good thing it wasn’t up to Bracken.
3
To Nolan Ragsdale it felt strange to be headed back to Mainland. He sat in the back of a co
ntainer truck with only small slits in the side to give light from the outside world. He and another man, Gus, sat across from each other with barrels of some mineral all around them. If the truck was stopped or checked by Mainland guards, the two of them would be able to hide, but Gus kept his rifle ready just in case. Nolan had a pistol. It would be enough to fight a few soldiers, but barely.
On this particular mission Nolan might have liked to be by himself, but this was just the type of operation where he needed a companion. Gus had to be twice his age with deep set wrinkles and a brown weathered face. His white hair fell past his eyes and covered his ears. Every couple of minutes he would start coughing until he got whatever it was out of his throat and then finished it off with a harsh-smelling liquid that he kept in a small flask hidden away in his jacket pocket. If Nolan didn’t know Gus’ reputation, he might have thought this was some kind of joke, but the Council knew what it was doing, and this mission was too serious. Gus knew Mainland well. He’d been a broadcaster for the news, and a good one too, until he was banished for getting too close to a meaty story about corruption within the Mainland government.
More than twice Nolan caught Gus staring at him, though he couldn’t blame him. Nolan was the most wanted man in Mainland. To some Outlanders he was like a king, heralded as one of the greatest men of their generation. To others, however, he was little more than a troublemaker and a killer. He wondered what Gus thought.
“You look younger than in your pictures,” Gus said when Nolan caught him staring for the third or fourth time.
“That’s because the news chooses bad pictures of me,” Nolan replied with a smirk.
Gus shrugged. “I suppose after all you’ve been through you would have aged a couple of decades. You’re only like thirty, right?”
“Thirty-one,” Nolan said.
The man shook his head and sipped more of the alcohol from the flask. “I can’t even remember my thirties it was so long ago.” The man sniffed a nose full of mucus and hocked a wad of phlegm past the nearest barrel. It smacked the next barrel with a loud ping and Nolan couldn’t help but look away in disgust. “So,” Gus said, leaning his head in toward Nolan. “What was it like? You know…when you…” He held up his pointer finger and thumb like a gun and made a motion as if he was shooting it.
This was not Nolan’s first interaction like this. He had been the one who delivered the sting, the hardest blow to Mainland that had ever been made by the Outlanders. Of course, it was over a year ago. All the hype had calmed down. But still, it was all part of the plan. Almost a year ago to the day, he murdered the president of Mainland, Clarence Godfrey.
The kill had been simple. The escape, however, proved to be more complicated. Still, he had pulled it off and the Mainlanders were in shock. But killing the president had been only a small part of the plan. The Outlanders also wanted to send a message that they weren’t the only people left on this earth. There were others outside Mainland’s circle of protection.
He knew killing the president would only fuel the Mainlander hatred for all Outlanders, but killing the president hadn’t been the only objective. They were supposed to expose him for who he was. Clarence Godfrey was an evil man and people didn’t know it. No one knew it except some of the Outlanders.
Within the closed circles of the Mainland government there were secrets. Dangerous ones. And these weren’t the type of secrets that were kept for the sake of protecting the citizens. The government wasn’t keeping information from Mainlanders for their own good. They were the kind of secrets that if exposed, would cause revolts, riots in the streets, mayhem. There would be chaos all throughout Mainland. That was Nolan’s mission. He wanted to expose the truth to the people there. He wanted there to be revolts and riots.
He never looked at himself as an agent of chaos. Chaos for chaos’ sake was not productive. Everything in their plan was calculated. Chaos throughout Mainland would make the government weak. Eventually, a new government would emerge. And in the midst of all of it, the Outlanders would rise. When Mainland was at its weakest point, there would be another enemy to swoop in and change things.
“I would have given anything to still be a broadcaster when all that was going on,” Gus said.
“How long has it been since you were tossed out?”
“Years and years.” He looked down at his hands as if the topic wasn’t years old. Instead, it seemed like a fresh wound. “You want a sip?” Gus growled at him, holding up his flask in the air.
Nolan shook his head.
“You might need one. We’re coming up on the border.”
Nolan felt a new level of anxiousness that hadn’t been there before. Once they crossed through the border and into Mainland there would be no turning back. Not that he could afford to turn back anyway. Outlanders couldn’t afford it. They had been running out of food stores and supplies and pretty soon they would be dying off. They just didn’t have the resources that Mainland had, but Mainland wanted it that way. They were happy to let the savages die off.
He stared at the barrel in front of him. It was old and dented and had probably made this trip more times than Nolan could count. The minerals were priceless to the Mainlanders and they were only able to obtain them miles and miles from their border. Generally, they had become experts at traveling safely and they were rarely attacked by the Outlanders.
There were oil fields too. The oil fields were more heavily guarded than Mainland itself, so attacks on those only proved to be an annoyance to the Mainlanders. But there were still few who were loyal to the Outlander cause on the inside. That was why he and Gus had been able to sneak into the truck. That was why they probably weren’t going to have any trouble once they reached the border. This plan had taken a long time to formulate.
Nolan scooted to the side of the truck and leaned over a barrel to look through one of the thin slits. An armored truck beside them rode at a steady pace. A soldier manned the mounted machine gun at the top of the vehicle, keeping himself attentive to the possibility of an attack. The worry was warranted. In fact, Nolan had ordered plenty of such raids. Some were successful, some were not. The Outlanders needed oil and minerals too, but the Mainlanders controlled all the fields, leaving nothing for them to use. The Mainlanders made it impossible for the two groups to coexist. Instead, by taking the rich farming land, all the oil fields, and the mining sites, the Mainlanders forced the Outlanders to fight.
Nolan didn’t blame the citizens of Mainland. They didn’t know any better. They were taught day in and day out that the Outlanders were savages hell-bent on stealing from the Mainlanders and destroying their livelihood. They, unlike their government, didn’t know how much the Outlanders were struggling. The regular citizens didn’t know that they were the ones hoarding all the goods, leaving others to fend for themselves in the vast wastelands.
Earth was scarred by wars of the past. Some lands were uninhabitable. The home of the Outlanders was barely livable, but Mainland flourished. Soon, things would be different. The Mainlanders would all see the error of their ways. They would all know that they were responsible for the deaths of each and every Outlander. The Savages.
They were hardly savages, though the tattoos, markings, and clothing were difficult to get past, Nolan knew. Not all of them looked that way. Nolan didn’t subscribe to that particular fashion, but he’d also grown up as a Mainlander too—a fact that had never escaped his memory.
He continued to stare at the soldier riding in the back of the truck, his hands firmly set on the large machine gun as he scanned the horizon. There was another truck, identical to this one, on the opposite side of the carrier. Then there was one in front and behind. Technically, he and Gus were surrounded by enemies, their only friend being their driver. But Nolan knew that once they crossed the border, three of the armored trucks would break away and head off for the base or some other assignment while one of the vehicles would follow them all the way to their destination.
“I’m proud to be helping,” G
us said, cutting into Nolan’s thoughts. “I’ve been waiting for an assignment like this for a while.”
“Is that right?”
“Yep.”
“And why exactly have you wanted an assignment like this one?”
Gus tilted his flask upward until there were only burning drops trickling into his mouth. He winced and screwed the lid shut, placing the flask back into his pocket. “We all need to do our part. If we don’t do something, my family’s gonna die.”
“You have family?”
“We all do,” he said with a smile.
Of course, Nolan thought. It was sort of a mantra with the Outlanders. Even those whose immediate family were dead and gone were not without family. As a people they had to stick together. Each man was a brother. Each woman was a sister. All Outlanders were family.
“As for blood relations,” he shook his head. “Had a wife once. Lost her to the sickness.”
Nolan knew he was referring to the plague-like disease that had spread through the Outlanders like wildfire about ten years before. No one had been safe, and many people died because of it. So many lives had been taken that the six-month-long event became simply known as the sickness. If anyone had lost somebody to the sickness it was clear what he or she was talking about. Of course, during that time Nolan hadn’t been an Outlander. He was just getting his feet wet in the cesspool of the Mainland government. He had been young and stupid, but he wouldn’t have changed a thing. The work had opened his eyes. It made him see what was truly happening in the world.
“I’m sorry to hear that,” Nolan said.
Gus nodded. His hand reached for his pocket before he remembered the flask was empty. Nolan wondered how many gallons of alcohol the man had gone through since he lost his wife. He wondered too about how the Council could trust a drunk, but they never made a rash decision.
Minutes passed and Nolan rested his head against a barrel behind him. He let his heavy eyelids dangle on the brink of closing. Nolan and sleep hadn’t been friends for the past few weeks leading up to today. Careful planning was almost a constant imperative and every time he and other leaders seemed to come up with the right one, they would find a flaw, scrap it, and start again.
Prototype D (Prototype D Series Book 1) Page 3
