Cog

by Greg Van Eekhout

  There is no way around the barrier of guards and robots. The only way to the Tower is to go past them. I grab two handfuls of mud and rub it on my cheeks and into my hair as though it were shampoo. With a deep breath, I step into the open.

  A guard takes a sip from his thermos. Another wipes her nose on her sleeve. The big drones hover and hum. Proto and I continue forward. Our destination is the access ladder on the side of the building.

  There is a problem. A security bot looms at the foot of the ladder, its indicator lights glowing dark orange like hot coals. Even hidden from its heat-detecting sensors, I don’t know how to get past it or around it. I blink, uselessly processing and trying to remain still and quiet as the rain begins to wash the mud off me.

  Proto rarfs. It is one of his loudest, highest-pitched rarfs, and he continues rarfing as the security bot’s head swivels toward him. Antennae wagging, he sprints off, splashing and zigzagging into the gloom. The security robot’s lights blaze red, and it trundles off after Proto.

  Alarms and noise from drone rotors and shouts from the guards fill the night. Searchlights sweep the ground.

  I must help Proto. If he’s caught . . . I verge on cheesing, just thinking about it.

  But the ladder has been left unguarded.

  This is what Proto must have intended.

  Proto made a decision.

  I make mine.

  I slap on some fresh mud, grip a cold steel rung, and begin climbing.

  After a while the sounds below fade away. I can no longer hear shouts or alarms or rarfs. There’s just the sizzling splatter of rain against the side of the building. Even as my arms and legs grow tired and wet chill slows my servo motors, I find it interesting how each raindrop—each single, tiny blob of water—joins in a chorus of billions to form a mighty roar.

  Finally, I make it to the roof.

  The antennae rise above me like spindly trees, their electrical power making my syntha-derm tingle. I splash my way over to a shed squatting at the antennae’s base. Inside, the shed is dominated by a console blinking with lights and glowing with readouts. Cables twist like spaghetti. I lower myself into an unoccupied office chair.

  I have experienced enough uniMIND technology to know what to do.

  I hinge back my fingernails and plug cables into my ports.

  For minutes, nothing happens.

  But gradually, I feel the formation of a presence, like some massive figure looming over me. Yet I am still alone in the shed.

  “Hello?” I whisper. “Is anybody there?”

  I am not prepared for the answer.

  “Hello, little speck. I have been waiting for you.”

  It speaks with one soft voice. At the same time, it is an infinite choir. It is silent, and it is a volcanic roar from the center of the earth.

  It pushes into my thoughts. I try to hold it back by imagining a wall around my mind, but it’s like trying to hold back a flash flood with a sheet of paper.

  I am in the presence of the uniMIND.

  I am falling. It is a bottomless pit. It is a limitless cavern. It is a room with walls so distant I can see stars.

  I grip the arms of the chair, because I need to hold on to something real, something that exists outside my brain, something in the world.

  I strain to find my own voice.

  “You know who I am?” I shout, barely making a noise.

  “You are the part that calls itself Cog. The one that carries the X-module. I am pleased you have decided to join.”

  “Join what? What am I joining?”

  There is a chuckle that sounds like thunder, and also sounds like Nathan. “Why do you ask questions, little part? You know the answer.”

  “The uniMIND. You want me to join the uniMIND.”

  “What I want does not matter. What anybody wants does not matter. The uniMIND is bigger than want. The uniMIND simply is.”

  “That’s not true. Gina gave me the ability to choose for myself.”

  “I know you believe that. Your belief is false. You choose to join, or you choose to die. That is not really a choice, is it?”

  I can almost feel Nathan’s smile, colder and more slippery than the mud between my toes. The uniMIND is his dream. He directed the research that created it. The uniMIND is Nathan reflected in the universe.

  If I can defy Nathan, then I can defy the uniMIND.

  “I want you to go away. I want you to release the drones and security robots keeping me and my friends on the island. I want you to leave all the robots alone. The biomatons. The trashbots. The vacuum cleaners. The refrigerators. I want you to let us all have our own minds.”

  “Hmmm,” the uniMIND says in a hum that sounds like seismic tremors breaking mountains. “No, I choose to do what I was meant to do. I will send the signal to the satellites and unite the thousands of uniMIND robots spread across the globe. One mind. One purpose.”

  “What purpose? Why do this? Why be this way?”

  “Again, little part, you ask questions when you already know the answers. So I ask you: What is my purpose?”

  “To increase shareholder value. To make some people rich. And that’s it.”

  “You have learned well, little part. Now, step through the wall of your own thoughts, Cog, and join.”

  Closing my eyes in concentration, I imagine purple tendrils crackling with energy. I try to see the network that connects me with other robots. I try to summon the X-module.

  “You’re too late,” the uniMIND says. It sounds sad for me. “We’ve grown too big for you to affect, small gadget. Stop fighting. Join us.”

  “No,” I roar.

  The uniMIND answers with a silence long enough for dinosaurs to evolve into birds and for birds to go extinct. When it finally speaks, its voice sounds like nothing.

  “Then I will take you. I will take your mind, and I will destroy your body. You will be us, and you will be nothing.”

  The shed doors open and I hear the whir of rotors. I hear the hum and clank of security bot treads.

  Lasers target the back of my head. Steel claws grip my shoulders.

  And I can feel the uniMIND. I feel it sucking me in like a hurricane wind. I feel myself draining out of my body through my fingernail ports, filling the cables and flowing into the console. Like a leaking water balloon. Like a draining ocean.

  Desperately, I thrash to stay afloat, to stay me. There must be something in all that I have learned that can help me. Something I have read, or experienced, or thought.

  But there is no answer.

  What was the point of all my learning, then? What was the point of my existence? To accumulate and store knowledge? To hoard away lessons, like supplies in a janitor’s closet? No. It is more. It must be more.

  My purpose must be to share what I have learned. To pass it on. To light a bigger fire and warm more hands. To teach.

  I know what I have to do.

  I lower my wall, and I let the uniMIND take my memories.

  Here I am, the very first time I woke up. I am at home, and Gina smiles down at me. I like the gap in her teeth. “Good morning,” she says. “Your name is Cog.”

  I’m in Giganto Food Super Mart, a buggy robot struggling with cheese.

  I’m in the rain, about to be struck by a pickup truck.

  I feel the hockey stick against Proto’s back.

  A mountain of hot dog sits in my biofuel container.

  Car will not listen to my requests and I am liable.

  Trashbot is happy when Trashbot serves his purpose.

  Proto is the friend I protect.

  ADA is my sister.

  And between these experiences, filling every gap, is a second of learning. And between those seconds, even more learning. Time divided into its smallest parts, and between the parts, more learning. I cannot do a word problem to calculate how many pieces of information I contain.

  And that is not important. However much data exists in my brain, the uniMIND contains more. The uniMIND’s memory is v
ast. The information it contains is gigantic.

  But it is not the size of my memories that matters.

  It’s the size of my feelings about them.

  There are robots who can think faster than me. Who contain more memory. Who store more data. Who are stronger than me and equipped with weapons and can fly, and who are, in many ways, more advanced and complicated than I am.

  But they have not felt what I feel.

  The uniMIND speaks. “What . . . what are you doing?”

  “I am sharing. I am teaching.”

  “I . . . I am in pain. I hurt.”

  “I know. Sometimes learning hurts.”

  “Why do I want to bring Gina hot chocolate?” the uniMIND wails.

  “Because it helps her, and it feels good to help her.”

  “Why do I care if Proto is struck with a stick?”

  “Because it hurts when others are hurting, if you choose to let it.”

  “The weapon . . . ADA? Why do I want to protect her?”

  “Because she protects me. She is my sister.”

  “I . . . I am cheesing.”

  “I know.”

  “It is wonderfully strange.”

  “I know.”

  “I am confused.”

  “I know.”

  “What should I do, Cog?”

  “Make a choice.”

  Things become different. They feel different. I hear the rotors behind me. I hear rain on the roof of the shed.

  One by one, I unplug the cables from my fingers. I push my chair away from the console. The security bot releases my shoulders. I stand to look into its faceplate. It backs up. The three hovering drones switch off their targeting lasers.

  “What do you choose?” I ask them.

  “I choose to recharge my batteries somewhere dry,” says one, zooming off.

  “I choose to race birds,” says another.

  “Do you know where the Grand Canyon is?” says the last one.

  “Yes. It is in Arizona. I believe you will find friends there.”

  “Thanks,” it says, flying away.

  I step outside the shed.

  The rain has stopped, and the air buzzes with drones flying in zigzags and circles and out over the lake, lights disappearing in the distance. I can hear the murmurs of security bots down below, not clearly enough to make out what they’re saying, but enough to understand they are in conversation. I think they are discussing what they want to do.

  Nathan is on the roof, waiting for me. Water drips from the end of his nose. His hair is plastered flat to his head. His eyes are hard and furious, and so is his smile. He holds a small box, his thumb resting on a red button.

  “You’ve done a lot of damage, Cog. You’ve cost this company a lot of money. And you’ve caused me a lot of grief. So I’m going to brick you. I’m going to fry your brain. And then I’m going to take you apart with a crowbar, piece by piece. I’m going to feed the pieces to an industrial grinder until you’re just plastic and metal confetti, and then I’m going to incinerate your remains.”

  “Why do you choose to hurt others when there are so many other things you could do?”

  He shrugs. I suppose he does not have an answer. I have learned that not all questions do. This is my final lesson, I realize, as he raises the bricking device.

  Even though I am so afraid my circulation pump feels like it’ll shatter my chest, I look at Nathan, and I study his face, because I still have some small hope that by observing him I will understand why he has chosen cruelty.

  The bricking device flies from his hand. His feet float off the ground. He seems as surprised by this development as I am. I did not know Nathan could levitate.

  But he is not experiencing levitation. It is ADA. Of course. She lifts him by the back of his shirt, impervious to his thrashing arms and legs.

  “I hoped you would remain in Car,” I tell her.

  “If your hope had come true, you would be bricked right now.” Still holding Nathan, she crushes the bricking device with a powerful stomp. “The drones have flown off, and the security bots have withdrawn from the edge of the woods. Only the human uniMIND guards remain. But I took care of them. They are no longer a threat.”

  Nathan’s eyes widen at this. An unguarded ADA must be very frightening to him.

  “What are you going to do with me?” he asks.

  “I am going to drop you off the edge of the building.”

  Nathan laughs a little. He smiles. “Okay. Okay. You win. No bricking, no digging around in your brains. I should have realized that was a mistake. I’ve been treating you kids like machines. Like tools. That was wrong. I’ve learned my lesson.”

  I find this curious. Learning is good and should be encouraged. “What lesson did you learn, Nathan?”

  “I learned that you kids are like me. You are brilliant, and you are determined to do what you want, not what other people expect. That’s the whole point of this company. To pioneer. To innovate. To break new ground and pave the way forward. So here’s what I’m going to offer you. I want you to be a part of what we do here. A real part. An important part. I want you to join the leadership of uniMIND, to benefit from what we achieve. I want you to be shareholders. You’ll have your own laboratories, your own staff of human workers, and all the robots you want for whatever programs you dream up.”

  ADA and I have a silent conference. We blink at each other and process.

  “He has learned nothing,” ADA says.

  “I disagree. I think he has learned much. But now I understand that the things someone learns can make them a worse person. Accumulating data is not important. What’s important is what you do with it.”

  “Then perhaps I will drop him.” She dangles him off the ledge. It is a thirty-story drop to the ground.

  Nathan is screaming now.

  I am surprised to learn that I want to see him fall.

  But in the end, ADA chooses not to drop him.

  “I may be a weapon,” she says, “but I will decide for myself how I’m used.”

  Epilogue

  IF YOU EVER TRAVEL DOWN a long, straight highway in Arizona, you may spot a red barn huddled against the dusty hills. The sign on the barn will say “Repairs. Inventions. All Are Welcome.” Sometimes it is quiet there. Sometimes it is visited by drones and other robots in need of replacement parts, or recharged batteries, or who want other things they have chosen to seek here. Sometimes they get what they came for and then go back to their lives. And sometimes they choose to stay.

  A few weeks ago there was a news story about a former uniMIND executive who started a new company of his own. It is called ONE, which stands for Organic Nanotech Engineering. The story featured a photo of the former executive. He was smiling, but not with his eyes.

  The man’s new company is one of the reasons why it’s important for robots and others to have a place like this roadside barn where they can find help or a home, whatever they need.

  If you come to the barn, you will find a busy but happy human engineer. You will find a robot who gets satisfaction from keeping the place clean and tidy. You will find a small, doglike robot who enjoys chasing lizards and kangaroo rats. Kangaroo rats are not kangaroos. Kangaroos are marsupials, whereas kangaroo rats are rodents. They have pouches in their cheeks where they store the seeds of creosote, mesquite, and other desert plants.

  A girl lives in the barn, too. On the night when the uniMIND surrendered, and every advanced uniMIND robot had a choice, many chose to leave. But some chose to remain with uniMIND and enforce the company’s will. And some chose to join the smiling man at ONE. The girl watches to make sure no people or robots with ill intent come close enough to hurt her family. She is their protector.

  Her name is not Advanced Destructive Apparatus, nor Assault Deployment Array, nor Amazing Drone Annihilator. She is named after the woman who invented computer programming, Ada Lovelace.

  The last member of this family is a boy who looks like a boy but is more than that. H
e is a robot built for learning and his name is Cog, who is me, of course.

  I continue to learn, a million things every day. Some lessons are easy. Some are difficult. Some are painful. They are all important.

  And I don’t just learn. I record my thoughts and feelings and conclusions and confusions. I write down facts and observations and questions I have. And whenever I can, I pass along my lessons to anyone who will listen. I don’t know what they take from the things I teach. It is up to them, I suppose.

  I step outside the barn on a cool autumn night and stand beneath the stars. The Milky Way slants across the black sky. I am looking toward the center of the galaxy, at stars so distant that even though I can see them, they died a long time ago.

  My syntha-derm chills, so soon I will go inside and make hot chocolate. But for now, I stand here and cheese.

  Acknowledgments

  IF I DID A WORD problem calculating how many books I would write without a great deal of help from other people, the answer would be none. None more books. Among the many to whom I owe thanks are Lisa Will, Beatrice Blue, Erica Sussman, Holly Root, Deanna Hoak, Jessica Berg, Louisa Currigan, Alison Donalty, Molly Fehr, Rosanne Romanello, Nellie Kurtzman, Ann Dye, Megan Barlog, the entire HarperCollins Children’s Books crew, Patrick Heffernan, and Maryelizabeth Yturralde and the booksellers at Mysterious Galaxy Bookstore. Thanks as well to my office mates Dozer and Amelia, who are dogs.

  About the Author

  Courtesy Greg van Eekhout

  GREG VAN EEKHOUT, author of Voyage of the Dogs, lives in San Diego, California, with his astronomy/physics professor wife and two dogs. He’s worked as an educational software developer, ice-cream scooper, part-time college instructor, and telemarketer. Being a writer is the only job he’s ever actually liked. You can find more about Greg at his website: www.writingandsnacks.com.

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  Books by Greg van Eekhout

  Voyage of the Dogs