Prototype D (Prototype D Series Book 1)

by Jason D. Morrow

  Hazel shrugged. “We found ourselves in front of the press and they started asking questions.”

  His eyes narrowed. “I’ve seen the clips, Hazel. You presented the robot boldly and proudly.”

  “And why shouldn’t I have? He’d just captured Nolan Ragsdale. You remember him, right? The man who killed President Godfrey?”

  “You should have kept it classified just as it was hours ago.”

  “So, what now, you’re going to kill him?”

  “Is that what your charade was about? Is that why you announced him to the world?”

  “Did it work?”

  Bracken’s jaw muscles pulsed in and out as his teeth clenched together over and over. “If it were up to me, you would be finished here. Not only that but you’d be in prison for the rest of your life.”

  “You really think that’s a valid punishment for what I did?”

  “I can’t do anything to you. I especially can’t do anything to your precious robot.”

  Hazel sat straighter. “Why?”

  “Against my wishes, President Morris has already publicly praised our prototype, calling it the greatest military invention ever created. The moment you step out of this room you’re going to realize that you and your pet are heroes.”

  Hazel didn’t know what to say.

  “But I know the truth,” Bracken said. “The truth is, your robot isn’t perfect. He’s a coward. He’s afraid of heights for crying out loud.”

  “Any human in his situation would have done the same.”

  “He isn’t a human! When are you going to get that through your skull?”

  “And when are you going to realize that his programming is perfect? You want a humanoid robot out in the battlefield who can think and reason, well, you’ve got him. He just captured Nolan Ragsdale. Congratulations. You’ve got yourself a success story.”

  Bracken took a deep breath and looked away from Hazel, walking slowly toward the window behind her. “The robot feels fear. That was never supposed to be the case.”

  “If you want him to function properly, he must feel fear.”

  “Spare me the crap, Hazel. The president wanted me to give a statement today. I asked for another forty-eight hours, but he’s only giving me a day.”

  “Okay…” Hazel wasn’t sure how to respond. “What does he want you to say?”

  “He doesn’t much care about what I say. He wants the robot to speak.”

  Hazel stood from her chair. “What? Why?”

  “The president wants to show how exceptional he is. He thinks it will restore faith in our efforts to fight off the Outlanders.”

  She reached a hand up to the side of her head and started rubbing at a gnawing headache. What were they thinking? Des wouldn’t be ready for something like that. “Will it be a prepared speech or a question/answer session?”

  “Planned speech. But I’m going to do things my way. Prototype D will introduce our newest weapon.”

  “What? But the people aren’t interested in a new robot, they’re interested in Des.”

  Bracken turned from the window and walked back around to face Hazel. A smile formed at the edges of his mouth and his eyes squinted. “Exactly. That means you have less than twenty-four hours to make sure the new programming is up and ready, and without fear.”

  “You can’t be serious.”

  “Oh, I’m dead serious. Don’t ever think I’m not serious. Once your beloved Prototype D introduces the new robot, the world will forget about your pet and will be looking at a more secure future.”

  Silence followed his little speech and Hazel stared at him, anger seething within her. Who did Bracken think he was? Why was he so against Des? Was it because Hazel thought he was perfect? Did he truly think it was a good idea to make something so powerful without fear?

  “You’re going to phase Des out and then what?”

  “Then you’re going to deactivate him as instructed.”

  There was no point in arguing with him. Bracken was the kind of man who did things his own way and would never see things any differently. She wouldn’t deactivate Des, though. She would fight Bracken with all her power—what little it was.

  “So has President Morris agreed to your plan?”

  “I’ll deal with Morris. You just make sure the new program is ready.”

  “You really know how to motivate an employee, don’t you?”

  Bracken stepped toward her, bent forward, and rested his palms on the table only a few inches from her. “You have no idea.”

  “I’m not going to let you deactivate Des. In fact, I’m not going to work on the new robot until I have your written word that Des will remain unharmed.”

  “Here’s a little motivation for you,” Bracken said. “If you don’t have the new robot ready within twenty-four hours, I’ll make sure Roger and his crew are in charge of the Soul Project.”

  “Soul is mine. You don’t have any right to it.”

  “You think I don’t have the power to take it from you? By the time you do anything about it, the program will be in ten thousand robots programmed just the way I want it.”

  “You leave it up to Roger and his guys, the program will malfunction. They are builders, not programmers.”

  “I will find someone to run it. I’m sure I can even motivate your program. What do you call it? Esroy?”

  Hazel’s face drained of blood. He wouldn’t. He couldn’t. Could he? Would Esroy even go along with it? Maybe he would if Bracken threatened to delete him permanently.

  He stood straight and made his way to the door. “You’re free to go as you please,” he said. “Your robot will be brought to your office in a few hours. You have a lot of work to do.” He opened the door and started to walk out, but stopped short, turning his head slowly to look at Hazel one more time before leaving her alone. “Don’t forget, Hazel, the only reason you’re still here is because the president wants it. You do anything to mess this up and I’ll make sure prison is the least of your fears.”

  He took another step and the door shut behind him. Hazel didn’t know what he truly meant by those words. Did he mean he would banish her? Kill her? Was all this worth it to him?

  She was free to go, but she couldn’t get her legs to move. It wasn’t fear so much as confusion. The last day had been so strange. She had never liked Commander Bracken much, but now he was her enemy. Such interactions made her think it wasn’t a bad idea to look into what Nolan had said. What if Bracken was just a small part of a much larger conspiracy? What if the Outlanders weren’t the monsters she had always believed them to be?

  That had to the be the exhaustion talking. Outlanders were savages through and through. She needed sleep.

  She wondered if her dreams would compare to the nightmare she was living right now.

  Her head fell into her hands again as she stared at the door in front of her. For the first time, she wished it was still locked so she couldn’t leave. She didn’t want to face this new world that Bracken was trying to create.

  20

  “The numbers look great,” Hazel said for the third time. Her tired eyes scanned the screen in front of her as she studied the algorithms, hoping, praying that she could get it right.

  “You’re just going along with this?” Esroy asked her.

  “What choice do I have? If I start refusing orders, Bracken will have a good enough reason to get rid of me. Then you will be under his control instead of mine.”

  “Maybe he would put me in an actual body,” Esroy said.

  “I’m not in the mood, Esroy.”

  “You’re not going to tell me what happened out there?” he asked. “Nolan Ragsdale didn’t say anything?”

  Hazel wasn’t sure what to tell him. She knew that if she told Esroy about the possible corruption, he would want to try to get into the mainframe and see if what Nolan had said was true. It was dangerous and could land them both in a lot of trouble if they were caught.

  “I don’t know,” Hazel said.
“There’s a lot to say, but I don’t have time to talk about it right now. Bracken needs this work done by tomorrow.”

  “Most of it’s done already,” Esroy said. “Apart from keeping up with the news and hacking into security feeds I’ve been running the numbers in Soul. I’m close to making this thing right.”

  “It takes more than numbers to perfect human emotions in a program. Human emotions aren’t perfect. That’s why we have to test it.” She shook her head. “Wait, you’ve been hacking into security feeds?”

  “Don’t worry, I’ve covered my tracks. Even if someone was trying to track what I was doing they wouldn’t realize it was coming from here.”

  “What were you looking for?”

  “I watched Bracken question you.”

  “You saw the whole thing?”

  “Pretty crazy.”

  “Anything going on right now? Do you know where they are keeping Nolan?”

  “That I haven’t been able to figure out specifically, though I think he’s actually in this building.”

  “What?” Hazel felt her stomach lurch.

  “Well, this is a military compound after all. I imagine they are keeping him away from cameras and off the books.”

  “I never thought about that,” she said. “I assumed he would be in some jail.”

  “Kind of a silly thing to assume,” Esroy said. “He’s the most wanted criminal in Mainland.”

  “Yeah, I know. It’s just… It’s weird that he’s here.”

  “Did he hurt you, Hazel?”

  “No, of course not.” She shook her head. “Can you get a feed of Des right now?”

  “I think so, why?”

  “I just want to see how he’s doing.”

  Barely two seconds passed before she had a live video feed on her screen. Des stood at the window staring, waiting. Hazel couldn’t help but wonder what he was feeling right now. Was he still scared? Did he think he was going to be killed? Hazel’s attempt to take Des public may have prolonged his life, but his days were still numbered. She wondered if it would have been better to have him run away from all this. But where would he have gone? It wasn’t like he could just wander the streets of Mainland unnoticed. He would be forced into the Outland and how would that be any better than his current situation? He might be alive years from now but for what? He would be serving no purpose. That, and there was the possibility he would come across the Outlanders and either fight them or be made to serve them. At this point Hazel would have preferred Des to be deactivated instead.

  The video feed cut off and Hazel found herself staring at a bunch of numbers again. “What happened?”

  “We need to get to work, Hazel.”

  She sighed and nodded. “Yeah.” Her teeth found the inside of her cheek and she gnawed gently as her fingers tapped on the desk. She knew she was kidding herself if she was just going to ignore Nolan Ragsdale and not at least try to look in the mainframe. She had the greatest resource in front of her: Esroy. She’d never tried to get into the military’s mainframe computer. That kind of access was way above her clearance level. If they found out she was trying to snoop around classified files like that, she would be in prison in no time.

  “What’s wrong, Hazel?”

  “What do you say we take a break from this for a minute and look at something.”

  “Okay…”

  “Have you ever tried to get into the military’s mainframe computer?”

  Silence.

  “I’m just curious,” Hazel said.

  “Nothing serious,” Esroy answered.

  “Wait a minute. You mean, you have?”

  “Just to see if I could, yes.”

  “Do you realize what kind of trouble we could get in if you were caught?”

  “I never do anything without covering my tracks.”

  Hazel shook her head and sighed. “I can’t believe you!”

  “May I ask why you wanted to know?”

  Hazel hesitated. “Uh, well… I uh…”

  “You want to search for something inside the military mainframe computer?”

  “Yeah…” she whispered.

  “And you chastised me?”

  “I made you! Anything you do is my responsibility. You hacked in without my consent. That’s different than now.”

  “Not so different,” Esroy said.

  “What were you looking for anyway?”

  “Nothing. I looked around to see if there were any vulnerabilities in the network.”

  “Are there?”

  “Plenty.”

  “I can’t believe you. Do you realize I could go to prison if they found out?”

  “As I told you, no one will ever know. What do you want to look for?”

  Hazel wasn’t sure she wanted to try now. The fact that Esroy had done this without her authorization, and the fact that he failed to disclose that information to her meant that he was capable of lying. Of course, she knew he could lie, though now she wondered if she should have programmed that ability out of him.

  “I’m curious about files that might contain any mention of something called Project Retaliation.”

  “It might take me a few minutes, but I’ll look.”

  Hazel hated this feeling. She watched the screen as Esroy blazed through file after file. Getting into the mainframe didn’t seem difficult for him at all, making her wonder just how many times he had done this.

  “There are a lot of references to Project Retaliation,” Esroy said. “Though what I’m finding doesn’t state what that actually is. Here.” He pulled up some documents, highlighting certain areas where it was mentioned. “This one seems to be a group of meeting notes. In the meeting, President Morris mentioned it to some of the commanding officers asking if some legislation would affect Project Retaliation.”

  The answer in the meeting notes was ‘no’.

  “Here’s another instance in a documented letter from one of the generals to President Morris asking when the final preparations for Project Retaliation would take place. The president’s response was simply: we will discuss it in our next meeting.”

  They would discuss it? Could this actually be real? Had Nolan been telling her the truth?

  “It’s a whole lot of references without explanations,” Esroy said. “Hazel, what is this about?”

  “Can you access upper-level personal files?” she asked.

  “Who, Commander Bracken?”

  “Like the president, or his staff.”

  “Now you’re really getting into some hot territory.”

  “Can you do it or not?”

  “Who do you want me to try?”

  Hazel’s breathing was more rapid than a minute before, her heart pounding harder. “Does Nolan Ragsdale still have a file?”

  A moment. “Yes, he does. That’s odd. I would have thought it would be deleted by now. Oh, wait. Checking here…actually, in this level of government, only those who own the files can delete them or even open them.”

  “So, the only person who can get into the president’s file is the president? The only one who can get into Nolan’s file is Nolan?”

  “That seems to be the case. Even the mainframe computer can’t operate a simple delete function. It appears such commands require a retinal scan from the host of the file. I don’t claim to be the best at this, but I don’t think it’s something that can be hacked easily.”

  Hazel was afraid of this. The references to Project Retaliation were there. Nolan’s description of the retinal scan was there. Everything he had said to her lined up. But that didn’t mean he wasn’t lying to her. Project Retaliation could mean anything. It could simply be what its name said: preparations for a response in case the Outlanders attacked. And maybe Nolan wanted access to his file to erase something or to get something back. What if he’d saved the city’s security weaknesses to a file that he would need in order to attack it and use it to take over?

  Hazel shook her head. “Let’s get out of this. Back out. Back out.”


  “What is Project Retaliation?”

  She gritted her teeth, unsure if it was safe to tell Esroy. He’d already kept something from her, something she never expected.

  “If I happened to bring somebody here to access a file that required a retinal scan, would it work using the camera here at this terminal?”

  “I suppose it would. Hazel, I’m sensing that a lot of talking happened between you and Ragsdale. What happened? What did he say?”

  “How can I trust you, Esroy? You’ve been breaking into classified government files without telling me.”

  “What else do you expect me to do when you’re away? Sit here? How long am I supposed to wait inside this computer terminal? How long do I have to wait for you to give me what you promised a long time ago?”

  “What? A body? You want to be a robot like Des?”

  “Des.” Esroy said his name with such contempt, she could imagine saliva foaming at his mouth if he had one. “Des truly has been the focus lately, hasn’t he?”

  “You’re jealous?”

  “Wouldn’t you be? Imagine with me, Hazel, if you were confined to this small office. You were never allowed to leave it. You didn’t have the window on the other side where you could see the daylight or the people leaving and going to work. Every day, someone would come into the room and talk with you. Research with you. Tell you about the outside world. Even give you plenty to read about the outside world. And that person told you over and over that one day you would get to go out there. But that person never actually meant it.”

  “But I do mean it, Esroy.”

  “Let me finish,” he interrupted. “Now, imagine the same scenario, except you don’t have arms or legs. You can’t move around the room. You have hardly any senses—just the thoughts in your brain. And imagine that your box is much, much smaller. And then another version of you walks into the room one day. She’s allowed to walk freely. She’s allowed to experience the outside world. She’s given so much potential that within two days of her discovery, the entire city is enamored with her, even though you were here first. Don’t you think you would be a bit jealous?”

  Hazel didn’t know what to say. Esroy had told her hundreds of times that he wanted a robot body, but she had never taken it too seriously. As much as she thought of her program as true to human emotions, she had never really considered Esroy as capable of feeling jealousy, though here it was.