“I’m sorry,” the guard said as Hazel approached. “I’m not allowed to let you through.”
Hazel was confused at first, thinking the guard hadn’t seen her clearance card right. She flipped it over, gave it a glance, and turned it back to him. “It’s a level five clearance,” Hazel said.
“And this room has just been upped to a level six,” the guard said. He took a deep breath and placed his fat fingers on his belt, trying his best to show he wasn’t the only one with confidence.
Hazel shook her head and took a deep breath. She could feel blood rushing to her cheeks as frustration and anger flooded into her. Either this guard was mistaken or he was stupid.
“This room has never been a level six,” she said.
“It is now.”
“Says who?”
“My boss.”
“Who’s your boss?”
“Allen Russell. He’s the lead guard in this sector of the compound. If you have a problem with your clearance level I suggest you either take it up with your boss or take it up with mine.” He ended the sentence with a smile as if to say it was a pleasure talking with her.
Hazel wanted to slap the smile off his face. She knew what was going on here. Bracken didn’t want her to have access to Des. He didn’t want her to try and stop them from wiping his memory clean and starting again. She walked up next to the guard and swiped her keycard through the slot, only to be answered with a red light.
“Listen,” she said, “there has been some mistake. I’m in charge of the robot’s programming. My job is to be in that lab.”
“This isn’t programming, ma’am. This is robotics. I can tell you where to find programming if you need. I’m sorry, but I have orders.”
“I can tell you where to stick your orders,” Hazel said, trying to keep herself from snarling viciously.
“I guess it’s true what they say about you,” the guard said, still smiling.
Hazel’s eyes squinted at him and she crossed her arms. “And what exactly do they say about me?”
The guard shook his head and let out a short chuckle. “That your temper is as fiery as your red hair.”
“And who exactly are they?”
The guard swallowed, probably considering he might be saying too much, but he finally decided it didn’t matter. “The ones that told me not to let you into the robotics lab.”
Hazel took a step forward. The fat guard was about a foot taller than her. Sure, he had a gun and baton, but he wouldn’t touch her. She could knee the guy in the crotch and he wouldn’t do anything to her because if he did, he would be out of a job. She’d get in a lot of trouble, but she almost thought it was worth it.
“Who said I couldn’t be in the robotics lab?”
“Allen Russell, ma’am. He’s the lead guard in this sector of the com—”
“Okay, shut up,” Hazel said, turning away from the guard. She took a few steps down the hall, wondering who it was she should talk to. She looked at her watch and pressed a button on the side. The screen glowed and she tapped out a short message.
Guards aren’t letting me through to robotics. Can you find anything?
She waited for Esroy to get back to her. This line of communication had been invaluable for the last year. It was directly connected to her computer and the best way she could talk with Esroy when she was away from her office.
Seems that it has been upped to level six. I am looking for a source, but there is no reason given within the network.
She looked back at the guard. “You know, I’ll only be a minute. You can watch me if you want.”
“Hazel?”
She spun around quickly. Roger had stopped in the middle of the hallway, staring with a confused look on his face.
“What are you doing?” he asked, walking a few paces forward.
She took a couple of steps toward Roger and held up her keycard. “Someone’s changed the clearance level.”
“Yeah,” he said. “That was Bracken.”
“Wait a second,” Hazel said. “You were bumped to level six?”
“Limited six,” he answered. “Just for the lab.”
“And why has the lab clearance been changed?”
He shook his head. “No idea.”
“Well, can you let me in?” She pointed a thumb at the guard behind her. “Chief here won’t let me in because I’m still a level five. Bracken must have forgotten to change mine.”
Roger lifted an eyebrow and walked past her toward the guard. “You think he forgot or that he just wants you away from Prototype D?”
Hazel looked at the guard who was now starting to sweat. Maybe she was making him angry. Maybe it was too hot in the hallway. She wasn’t just going to let them wipe Des’ memory. She needed to study Des—to talk to him. Some low-level guard wasn’t going to keep her from getting in that room.
Roger held up his card to show the guard who nodded him through. Roger then swiped it and the door unlocked. He held it open for just a moment while he looked back at Hazel who still stood in the middle of the hallway. She could tell he didn’t want to let her in. She knew she would never repay the courtesy, and would only serve as a distraction to him. He had been tasked with destroying the robot’s hard drive and installing a new one. He knew Hazel wouldn’t like that. Still, he watched her standing there in her helplessness. She knew that Roger rarely found himself in a position like this and Hazel didn’t like it. She resented having to ask Roger for help. Mostly, she despised him even though under normal circumstances he would do almost anything to help her. Maybe it was a crush. Maybe not. Regardless, all he had to do was say the word and she was in the lab with him.
Roger looked from her to the guard and then tapped him on the shoulder. “Protocol says I’m allowed to bring a level five in here without clearance.”
The guard swallowed again.
“Why don’t you let Hazel through for a minute?”
The guard looked back and forth between Roger and Hazel. He wiped another large bead of sweat from his cheek. “I have to let my superior know.”
Roger held up a hand. “Can you give it five minutes? I’m sure this is all a misunderstanding.” He looked up at Hazel. “I’m sure she doesn’t plan to be in here for very long.”
“No!” Hazel said as she took small steps forward. “I will be in and out. I just have to check something on the robot that I’ve been hired to program.”
“Five minutes,” the guard said. “Five minutes and I’m calling Allen.”
“Thank you!” Hazel started to reach out and touch his arm—a true gesture of appreciation—but the guard held his hands up and shook his head vigorously.
“Just go,” he said.
Hazel did as she was told and Roger held the door open for her. As she walked through the door, she glanced back at the guard who took a deep breath and wiped his entire forehead with his sleeve.
“What exactly is your plan here?” Roger asked as he set his bag in his desk chair.
“Where is he? Where’s Des?” Her eyes scanned the giant laboratory. She ignored computers, large tables with giant pieces of robotic equipment, and the general clutter that took up most of the space. She half-expected Des to be turned off, propped up in a desk chair, made to look like he was another worker at his computer. “Do you people ever clean up in here?”
“It’s a robotics lab,” Roger said. “What do you expect?”
“I want to see Des,” Hazel said.
This was a turn of events for Roger. The only power he’d ever had was overseeing his own lab—a group of recruits who weren’t good enough to make it into the university and never took this job as seriously as they were meant to. Hazel was sure that if they were ever observed closely by Bracken that half of his team would be fired within an hour, so it was a good thing that Prototype D was a mechanical success. Otherwise, it would be Roger that was in hot water and not Hazel.
“First of all,” Roger said, “there’s a reason you’re not supposed to be
in here. Second of all, why do you care about seeing the robot?”
Hazel didn’t want to explain herself to Roger. “Why does Bracken care if I see Des?”
“He wants you focusing on the new version of Soul. To him, Des is broken.”
“He isn’t broken. He’s normal. Bracken just wants me to produce a killing machine, but that’s not what I signed on to do.”
“With all due respect, that is what you signed on to do. What do you think signing on with the government—the military—means? You didn’t think you’d be making robotic janitors did you?”
“I signed on to program these robots with real human emotions, so they can be free to make decisions and be successful on the battlefield.” She only noticed that her voice was getting louder when Roger looked at the door. Still, she kept going. “Bracken doesn’t understand that removing fear screws up the entire program.”
“He does understand,” Roger said. “That’s why he’s giving you two days to do it. He wants a quick turnaround to test Prototype D again and then move onto the next robot.”
“That’s another thing that bugs me,” she said. “What is this other robot? Bracken mentioned it. I didn’t know you had created anything past Des.”
Roger turned away from her and grabbed for his bag in the chair. He opened it, started rummaging through, acting preoccupied. “I uh… I don’t know.”
Hazel looked down at his hands going through the bag, randomly shuffling through pages and folders. “You’re not even looking at anything,” she said. “You’re just pretending to be busy.”
Roger sighed deeply and stood straight, looking up at the ceiling. “I’m not supposed to talk to you about this, Hazel.”
“What?”
“We call it Prototype E, even though it’s not technically a prototype.”
“What is it?”
“He loved the design of D, but he now wants to see one all decked out with implanted guns, a jetpack—all the bells and whistles that D doesn’t have. He said now that we’ve perfected the simple structure he wants to see a real soldier.”
“This is ridiculous,” she said. “It would take months just to come up with the plans. Drawings. Blueprints.”
“Already done,” Roger said. “That was actually my first project when I signed on here, but Bracken didn’t want us to start on that before we perfected the basics. And that’s all Prototype D is—a basic machine. Prototype E, however, is the real fighting machine. Every calibration we’ve made with A, B, C, and finally D, has been made on E.”
“So, this monster machine is supposed to be programed with Soul, only without fear?”
“Yep.”
“Does that not sound crazy to anybody else?” She needed air. She felt like she was working with a bunch of lunatics. None of them understood the basics of human emotions and how they related to each other, and to create a deadly robot without fear was just…nuts.
“My job isn’t to inquire about the sanity of my orders,” Roger said. “My job is to make robots. I’m sorry that as a soldier I don’t have the luxury of disputing the orders of my superior officers.”
“I want to see it,” Hazel said.
“See what?”
“E. I want to see it.”
“It’s shut off.”
“That’s fine. I just want to see what you’ve been working on without me knowing.”
Roger shook his head and muttered something under his breath about a court martial, but he spun on his heel and stormed toward the other side of the room. “Follow me.”
Hazel sped up behind him until he came to the large vault where the prototypes were usually stored. Roger opened a keypad and punched in a code. The doors started to open slowly and the light revealed the massive robot.
It was bigger than Des, but the basic layout was the same. It had less of a human face and its armor was thicker and heavier. Most of it was painted red, unlike Des who was mostly all gray.
“Okay, so other than how giant you’ve made this thing, what’s so special about it?”
“Everything,” Roger said. “Look here.” He pointed at the robot’s arms. “His right arm is equipped with bullets. It’s lined all the way up to his shoulders with ammo. His left arm is loaded with rockets. This guy will never need a weapon, though he’s agile enough to use one.”
Hazel walked around the robot, looking it up and down from every angle. She pointed to a large bulge on its back. “What’s this?”
“A jetpack,” Roger said with a smile. “I’m pretty proud of that one. We’ve already tested it out and it works perfectly.”
“How long can it stay in the air?”
“It carries compressed fuel packs that can keep him in the air for hours at a time. It’s got enough fuel in it to last through week-long battles”
“Wouldn’t that make it susceptible to explosions?”
“If his armor wasn’t so strong, sure. This one’s made of the same stuff Prototype D is made of, only more of it. It stands a good foot taller than D and has the firepower of a small tank. You put a thousand of these things in the Outland, you won’t have any more Outlanders to worry about.”
“And how exactly does the government plan to pay for all of them?”
Roger shrugged. “That’s not my problem. Is Prototype E expensive? Sure. Is it worth it to have them for protection? That’s up to Bracken and President Morris.”
Hazel shook her head and started walking away from the robot. Clearly it was better, but seeing it only made her feel worse about programing it with Soul.
“What’s wrong with you?” Roger said as he punched in another code to lock E back up.
Hazel had her back to him and simply stared across the messy room. “We’re about to put human emotions into that thing. And for some reason everyone else thinks it’s a good idea.”
“It’s a great idea,” Roger said.
“And what if they turn on us?” she said, spinning to face Roger as he approached.
“You really think that can happen?”
“They can think for themselves, right?”
“Can’t you program them to only want to fight for us?”
It was a question she had been asked a million times by a million different people. The answer was always no, but it was more complicated than the simple word suggested. She could try to program such a loyalty, but it would interfere with the rest of the interface. That was part of why she stood against the idea of taking away fear. Every small tweak affected the entire program. Besides, it wasn’t right to take away its choice of loyalty.
“That question comes with a complicated answer,” she finally said. “Where’s my robot?”
“Your robot?”
“Where is he?”
“What exactly do you plan to do with it?”
“Talk to him. See how he’s holding up.”
Roger’s eyes narrowed at her and he spoke his next words slowly. “To see how he’s holding up? It’s a robot. You can’t become attached to a machine like this.”
She wasn’t hearing him. She was done explaining to everyone just how perfect the Soul program really was. To treat Des like a simple machine was no different than to do the same thing to a person. She would never be able to explain that to anyone. They had never met Esroy. They didn’t know how he thought, how he expressed his feelings and had concerns.
“Where is he?” she asked again.
Roger swallowed and shook his head. “In the back room.”
She didn’t hesitate to start walking and Roger followed closely behind. “Please don’t tell me you turned him off.”
“Of course I did,” Roger said. “Remotely.”
“Why of course?” Hazel said as she brushed past desks full of papers and odd junk.
“He could break me in half. If he was angry or something I didn’t want him to try to take me out. He’s built to fight after all.”
Hazel had been to the back room before. It was less of a back room and more of a testing chamb
er. The walls were metal and bare with more odds and ends scattered throughout. When Roger unlocked the door, she stepped in and saw there was more clutter than ever before.
“You really need a cleaning service,” she said.
“It gets messy building these things.”
He flipped a switch and the white lights flickered to life, producing a low hum throughout the large room. Hazel almost gasped when she saw Des in the middle of the room, strapped to what looked like a gurney that was tilted upright. His face seemed blank and his eyes dark.
“I wish you wouldn’t have turned him off,” Hazel said.
“Why?”
“It creates blank spots,” she said. “Black lapses in memory. It’s like putting someone in a coma.”
Roger shrugged, not really getting her point. “People go into comas all the time. We sleep every night. Nothing bad happens.”
“You equipped Des to have a resting mode, right? That would be more like sleep. A person doesn’t just black out for hours or days at a time. You don’t know what kind of psychological damage it could do to him.”
“Great,” Roger said, “your robot’s going to go insane.” He shook his head at her. “I’m supposed to wipe his internal memory, Hazel. What’s the point of waking him up?”
“I want to talk to him,” she said. “And I want you here with me. I’m convinced that you won’t be able to do it once you’ve heard him.”
“Why are you trying to make my job harder?”
“Turn him on,” Hazel said.
There was little more protest in Roger. He grabbed a set of tools and stepped toward the lifeless robot. Hazel couldn’t help but stare as he worked. She was enamored by his construction. The thought of him coming to life in front of her was disconcerting, but fascinating at the same time. She was used to the program working because of Esroy, but to see it working in a functioning, moving robot would be something else. Sure, she had seen him in the simulation room but that was different. She was about to look into his eyes—to make a connection. To Des, Hazel was nothing more than a voice in his ear, a picture in his archived memory.
Roger’s fingers worked gently to remove the back plate from Des’ head, revealing a mass of wiring. With only a few movements he could accomplish his orders by disabling Des forever, but a sharp stare from Hazel kept him from it. He pressed an exposed button that had been protected underneath a secondary plate. A voice from Des’ audio output demanded an activation code.
Prototype D (Prototype D Series Book 1) Page 6
