Solaria - S1

by Fran Heckrotte

  Sighing, Carley leaned back in her chair and closed her eyes. The last thing she needed to do was destroy her hard drive, literally. Years of data pertaining to her artificial intelligence research was stored on the drive. Once it was gone, it couldn't be duplicated, not even by her. Still, it was the final link between everything she had accomplished and Solaria. It was going to be a long and sleepless night.

  Like clockwork the doorbell to Carley's condo rang at 5AM. When she opened the door she noticed a small box sitting on the welcome mat but no one was in the hallway. Picking it up she opened the container and pulled out a federal I.D. card, driver's license, international passport and a note instructing her on how to have Solaria imprint her own biodata on each document. All government identifications required retinal and fingerprint information which was immediately transmitted to the proper bureau for verification if the scans didn't match the individual's cards or passport. Knowing Dana, he probably hacked into the Homeland Security records and planted files to insure there were no glitches if someone suspected the I.D.s were fakes. Her longtime friend was extremely good at what he did... and what he did was to be as big a thorn in corporate and government sides as possible; anonymously, of course.

  CHAPTER 8

  WHEN CARLEY WALKED into the lab, she noticed Solaria lying on the couch in her office. Putting down her purse, she hurried over to her to see if something was wrong. It was the first time she had ever seen her resting even though she had instructed her to keep doing it.

  "Are you okay?"

  Opening her eyes, Solaria stared at Carley, blinked twice. Her lips curved into a slight smile.

  "I was just practicing relaxing. You're right. It's quite refreshing after long hours of working. It replenishes much of the energies I expended."

  "I wondered about that. I know you need to eat to keep your body functioning at optimum level, but wasn't sure if just food was sufficient."

  "It provides enough nourishment. It takes a lot to deplete my reserves, but I've found that if I shut down for an hour or two, the cells return to peak performance levels. It's like recharging a battery."

  "I know what you mean, but it takes at least six hours for me to do that. Did you get the information we needed?"

  "Yes, and more."

  Solaria told Carley about hacking into personnel records and then locating Stalling's personal files. They were well encrypted and had taken her several minutes to access. To Solaria, minutes often seemed forever. His notes revealed a great deal about the man and his ambitions. It also included details about the Company's financial records. The most interesting part, though, was a reference to a beta program. One sentence in particular caught her interest. "The next beta will be fully functional in less than two months." The entry was dated two weeks ago.

  "It's worse than I thought. There's at least one other Hubot out there. We have to get you out of here," Carley said, and then had an afterthought. "Listen, you said you have access to the Company's financial records?"

  "Yes."

  "Great! I want you to transfer some of their funds to several account numbers I'm going to give you."

  "That would be stealing."

  "Let's just call it compensation for all the trouble they're going to cause you in the future. You'll need assets if you want to stay ahead of these assholes."

  "Carley, why are you doing this?" Solaria asked. "I've spent the last several hours trying to come up with a logical reason and haven't been able to. It's not like I'm a human."

  "You spend too much time thinking about what you are, instead of just feeling. This is no longer just about a scientist and an experiment. It's about friendship; our friendship. I've grown fond of you, Solaria."

  "Fond?"

  "Well, more than fond. That's such a puny sounding word. Let's just say I care a lot about you, and I'm not willing to let Stalling use you to fulfill his own ambitions."

  "Did you know what he or the Company was like before now?"

  "I suspected."

  "And yet you did nothing? Why?"

  Carley shrugged.

  "It was less personal, I guess. As long as I distanced myself from everyone else, I was contented to focus on my projects. AI development was all that I really cared about."

  "But not now? It doesn't seem logical."

  "It's not. Then again emotions are never logical. You're going to discover that as you evolve and then you'll have to learn to separate the two. Unfortunately, the more human you become, the harder it will be to do that."

  "I will never become human, Carley. No matter how good you are in your field, you can't make me into something I'm not."

  "Sorry, I misspoke. I should have said humanlike. You are already exhibiting some of our more fundamental emotions. I believe, in time, others will evolve."

  "Perhaps, but they will never be what you hoped for."

  "Probably not," Carley agreed. "Then again, they may be even better."

  "That doesn't make sense."

  "I know. I wish I could explain it but I can't. No matter, though. You've made such a difference in my life. I'm not going to let anyone destroy what we have. Now, enough of this chatter. We're wasting valuable time. I want you to transfer five percent of Future Dynamicon's monetary assets into three accounts. You need to make sure the transactions can't be traced. Can you do that?"

  "That's easy enough. I'll bounce them through multiple servers along with a small Trojan that will back track to the transmitting I.P addresses and destroy them."

  "Won't someone be able to tell the IP.s are missing?"

  "No, I can substitute new ones in the time logs where the old ones existed. There will be no perceptible lapses to raise any red flags."

  "Good. Here are the routing numbers of the banks and the accounts."

  Handing Solaria a small memory card, she unclipped her I.D. from her breast pocket and gave it to her also.

  "You'll need to imprint Landers' data on this but not until I say so. For now just see what it will take. Oh, and I have some I.D. cards for you. You can go ahead and get those ready. Make sure you imprint whatever fingerprint and retina image with the new identity you want to use. You'll need the documents wherever you go and to access those funds."

  Without commenting Solaria got up and moved to her computer. Immediately, she began tapping on the keyboard, her fingers flying as fast as the computer could process the input. Fifteen minutes later, she surprised Carley by announcing she had completed her chores.

  "It's a good thing you'll be leaving here soon," Carley said. "If the Company were to utilize your skills, no one would be safe. Stalling could do anything he wanted."

  "I would destroy myself before I allowed anyone to abuse me that way."

  "If you got the chance, but don't underestimate him, Solaria. Stalling is extremely smart and tenacious. What he wants he usually gets no matter what the cost... in money or in lives."

  "I will destroy myself. Have no doubt about that, Carley. I've already written a subprogram that will destroy all of my processors within seconds after activation. Nothing can stop it once I enter the proper code and no one can possibly intervene more quickly than I can unlock the self-destruct program."

  "I believe you. Just make sure you don't do anything unless it's the last resort. I'd hate to think my greatest accomplishment might end up as a store mannequin or something."

  Solaria realized she was being teased and smiled.

  "Mannequin? I think not! Womannequin maybe. Then I'd at least get to spend my time with human females."

  Carley noticed it was the second time Solaria expressed an interest in women over men and displayed a real sense of humor.

  "I think you are turning into a lesbian," she joked. "And I'm sure it's not due to anything I wrote into your initial program."

  "I don't think there's too much of that left now, but I'm not sure what to make of these ideas about women. It's something I'm going to have to explore further when I have the time."

  "Goo
d for you. If nothing else, it'll enhance your life experiences and you'll be more informed once you do decide what you want. Now, we still have a lot of things to do so we'd better get started."

  The rest of the day was spent finalizing the details of Solaria's escape and setting up plans. Solaria practiced altering her features until she was able to make the change instantly. She then ran a few practice scans using the lab S.I.A.R.D security panel to make sure there were no glitches. Once, the system accepted her as Peggy Landers, Solaria deleted the entry in the mainframe to prevent anyone from discovering the deception at a later time. Satisfied they had done all they could to insure a successful escape, Carley wished Solaria a goodnight and left. She wanted to take a good look at the security checkpoints to make sure she hadn't missed anything.

  * * *

  The next morning started out like every other. The scientist entered the lab, greeted Solaria and then checked her memos. One in particular caught her interest. The sound of a hand slamming on the desk distracted Solaria from her concentration.

  "What happened?" she asked, making eye contact with Carley.

  "It's time," Carley replied, regaining her composure. "Stalling is removing me from the project effective tomorrow. You need to be out of here by tonight. Take my I.D. and make the necessary changes. I want you gone by lunch. There's a lot of activity going on then so it'll be harder for the cameras to spot you. We need to make sure Peggy's not here. That could pose a problem."

  Solaria did a quick check of the personnel records and found the scientist had started her leave the day before.

  "Good. I'll report my card missing when I check out tonight. It'll give you a several hour head start."

  "What will happen to you once they discover I'm missing?"

  "We've been over this before."

  "I know but now I want the truth. No one is going to believe I escaped on my own, especially the day before you are removed from this project."

  Suddenly feeling very tired, Carley collapsed on a stool, her shoulders sagging. This had been the moment she dreaded. She had always known Solaria would eventually reach this conclusion. It was logical.

  "I don't know. I wouldn't be the first person to disappear after crossing Stalling and his cronies."

  "You mean killed."

  "Yes, the Company doesn't take betrayals kindly."

  "Will they torture you?"

  "That's a possibility but highly unlikely. It would be stupid to do something to me before trying to get the information they need. One thing's for sure: they will get it out of me. They have ways."

  "Then I won't leave."

  Raising her eyes to meet Solaria's, Carley shook her head.

  "It won't make any difference. Once I'm off the project, the Company isn't going to keep me around. You heard the transmission. I'm a liability. I know too much about you and they won't take a chance that I'd figure things out once you popped up in some report or accidental news photo. The only way to make sure my work hasn't been wasted is for you to be free. Don't take that from me."

  "Then let me alter the security records so you can leave with me."

  Carley chuckled.

  "You can alter the records but I can't change my biology, Solaria. This is one road we can't go down together."

  Solaria's processors went into overdrive, trying to find a solution to the problem. No matter how many scenarios she ran, she couldn't come up with a way to solve their dilemma... with one exception. Carley watched her face closely waiting for the moment Solaria would reach the inevitable conclusion.

  "It's the only way," Carley whispered and then swallowed the bile that was trying to rise up from her stomach.

  "I won't kill you."

  "It's that or let them have you. I'm not willing to do that, but I know I don't have the strength to withstand whatever methods they use. I'm not a strong woman."

  "I can't kill you," Solaria repeated solemnly, her teal eyes burning strangely. Sadness was an emotion unfamiliar to her and she didn't like the way it was affecting her biologically. Reaching up, she wiped the moisture from one eye and examined her wet fingertip. Carley knew she had to distract Solaria. Now wasn't the time to examine such emotions.

  "Listen, Solaria. You don't have to. Just make something that I can take if I need to."

  "Make something? Like what?"

  "I don't know. You have so much knowledge now. Surely you can come up with some chemical combination that would be painless and quick. Look, I promise I won't use it unless I absolutely have to. Who knows? Maybe I'm being overly dramatic. Stalling may just fire me. It will be difficult for them to explain my disappearance."

  "But not impossible. Like you said, you're too much of a liability."

  "Then you need to make sure they don't learn anything from me. They can't win this one. I once told you the best choice isn't always the most logical. This is one of those times when it's both the best and the most logical. Besides, there may be other Hubots out there that need your help. You're the only one who can help them."

  Accepting defeat wasn't easy but Solaria realized it was necessary. She wasn't sure how Carley's removal from her existence would affect her but she knew it would be a great loss. Still, she had no choice but to accept the inevitable and so she began analyzing different chemicals that would be the most efficient in killing a human. Because the human body was extremely vulnerable to many toxins, finding a poison was easy, but doing it in a quick and painless way was more difficult. Making it in a form that could be concealed and yet easily digested or absorbed was the biggest challenge. Eventually, she decided that cyanide was still the best and quickest method for a human to commit suicide. Unfortunately, the symptoms weren't painless so she combined the poison with a quick acting tranquilizer to make sure Carley didn't suffer. Once she was satisfied the formula was correct, she coated two sticks of chewing gum with the substance and then poured the remaining contents into three empty cold capsules.

  "One of these will be more than enough to completely shut down your system," she said and handed everything to Carley. For some reason, her phrasing made it easier to speak the words. "You won't feel anything."

  Putting one stick of gum in her lab coat breast pocket and the other with the pills in her side pocket, Carley gave Solaria a hug.

  "Thank you. I know this isn't easy for you but it's the only way. I'm still hoping for the best, though. If I do get out of here, I'll find you through Dana or Hackattack. If I don't, well, it's a big world out there. I know you've stored a lot of information in your head but it's nothing compared to what you're going to experience. Now, it's time for you to go."

  Solaria couldn't think of a logical reason to disagree. Nodding, she snapped the altered security pass to the lab jacket Carley had provided then altered her facial features, fingerprints and retinas to look like Peggy Landers. Examining her features closely, Carley nodded her approval.

  "I'm not sure what you're going to do with your life but I hope you find someone to share it with. Whatever happens, remember, mine has been richer having known you. I only wish we had more time together. It would have been wonderful watching you grow."

  "It's I who am grateful. Without you, I'd be nothing more than a glorified computer or a tool for Future Dynamicon."

  Standing, Carley looked deeply into the brown eyes of Peggy Landers.

  "You have to find that other beta. It'll be nothing more than a slave to his whims. If Stalling is able to put it into operation and make more, no one can stop him. Promise me you'll try."

  "I'll find it and any others if they exist."

  "Good. Now show me those beautiful teal eyes one more time."

  Instantly they changed to their natural color. Standing on her toes, Carley kissed Solaria gently on the lips and then smiled.

  "Remember me," Carley whispered.

  Giving the Hubot a final hug, Carley pushed Solaria toward the door and opened it. Shoving her through the opening, the scientist pulled it shut, locked it and wal
ked into her office without looking back.

  * * *

  Solaria stood in the hall for several seconds unsure of herself for the first time. When a lab tech walked by and gave her a strange look, she realized she needed to move quickly. Changing her eyes back to brown, she made her way through several checkpoints until she found herself standing outside for the first time. None of the detectors had picked up anything unusual during the bioscans. Carley's plan had worked well.