by H. L. Burke
“Come on, Hart. You can do this.”
“Trying. If I may remind you, this wasn’t my idea.”
A frantic beeping pierced Nyssa’s ears, and she cowered. The red beam flickered then blinked out. Her shoulders slumped.
“See. I knew you could do it.” She smiled.
The mirror interface whirred, the glass growing hot against her shoulder blades. She turned and blinked. Erratic lines of silver, blue, and red danced behind her reflection, distorting it.
“Hart, are you all right?”
“You shouldn’t have done that.” The threads of light trembled along with his voice.
“Done what?”
“It wasn’t safe. A few more seconds, and it would’ve triggered the security system. I can’t communicate with the knights. I wouldn’t have been able to stop them. I wouldn’t have been able to save you.”
She crossed her arms. “I didn’t ask you to save me. I understood the risk, and it was my choice to take it.”
“It wasn’t your choice!” The mirror crackled.
Nyssa stepped back. “Hart, settle down.”
“I was in charge of twenty-three people, Nyss. Twenty-three, and they’re all gone! I won’t lose anyone else on my watch, including you. If you are going to pull stupid stunts like that, this is over. I’m not going to be your accomplice in suicide.”
She sucked in her bottom lip. How do you soothe a frantic computer? Can’t exactly tell him to take deep, calming breaths. Uncertain what else to do, she pressed her palms against the face of the mirror. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have run in without warning you. You’re right, it was stupid, but it worked.”
“Nothing in the lab is worth dying for.” The lights magnetized towards her hands until her fingers glowed. A tingling sensation penetrated her skin.
“For me it might be. I wasn’t completely honest with you, Hart. This isn’t just a job for me; it’s my last chance at a normal life. A man killed my boss, and chased me into the streets. Without Rivera's help, I have nowhere to go, no one to go to.” Her throat tightened. Had it really only been that morning? Her old, safe life felt a lifetime away.
The mirror buzzed, and Hart’s voice hummed in her ears. “I’m sorry. Look, my programming is supposed to mimic human emotions, but those aren’t exactly logical things, and it's hard to know how to respond to certain situations … also being locked in an isolated system for several years isn’t the best social training. I shouldn’t have lost my temper. What idiot put anger into my program?”
She laughed, but it caught in her throat. “Well, according to you, they didn’t program in arrogance, but I’ve detected it in your tone more than once. Maybe you’re learning.” She considered the hall. “Are you getting any new information from this computer station?”
“Nothing new. Mostly security programs. However, the memory disks inside these knights should give us something to work with. I can instruct you on removing the disks.”
“From all of them?” She did a quick count. “How long will that take?”
“How about just one? I recognize most of the models here. They were in service when I was overseeing the household, but a few are new. I’d like to see what one of those has to say, since the others will likely only tell me what I already know. The one in the second alcove over looks promising.”
Nyssa shrugged and pulled the RAM from the port. She moved in front of the indicated suit of armor, propped the RAM up against the wall so Hart could see what she was doing, and fished in her satchel for her tool kit.
“You should be able to access the circuitry if you remove the chest-plate, similar to the maid,” Hart instructed. “There are screws on the side.”
She leaned over and examined the indicated area. “Star-headed screws. Unusual. I think I have the right screwdriver, though.” She selected a tool and began to unfasten the first one. “So, the choice to give you emotions, that doesn’t seem all that logical and scientific. It must take a lot of programming. Not very efficient.”
“Efficiency wasn’t the end goal. The Creator programmed me to make interactions as much like dealing with a real person as possible. Wouldn’t you rather deal with a person than a soulless machine?”
She dropped the first screw into her pocket and moved to the second. “Sometimes. Other times people are annoying. I guess I’m the minority there, though. Most people love to socialize. Still, it’s all fake: programming sending signals through circuits and wires.”
“How is that fake? Human emotions are basically powered by chemical reactions. Just because mine are electronic rather than hormonal doesn’t make them any less real.”
The second screw slipped out of her grasp and clattered to the floor. “I suppose.” With the next screw, the chest-plate swung to the side, allowing her to see the wires and wheels … and bones. The blood drained from her face, leaving her lips numb.
“What is it? I don’t like that look.”
She held the RAM up to show him. A full rib cage rested within the iron casing, wires twisted about it like vines around a ruined building.
“Oh not again … you’re right, sometimes these emotions don’t help at all.”
She glanced down the line of knights. “Do you think they all …?”
“I don't know. This is different from the maid, cruder. The maid's heart was beating, and there are no internal organs remaining this time. The maid's memories suggested she was converted near the end. Perhaps whoever did this hadn't perfected the system for keeping the organs 'alive' within the robotic shell yet.”
“But why? What possible reason could there be to combine humans with mechanical elements? What was Dalhart trying to accomplish?” Nyssa stepped back, trying not to think of the decaying flesh this knight had once encapsulated.
“I don’t know. Let’s see if we can get some more information out of this one.”
She threaded the handle of the RAM through the laces of her corset so that it rested against her chest, facing outward.
“I can see, but you still get the use of both your hands,” Hart said. “Clever if somewhat inappropriate.”
“If you were a man it might be inappropriate. I don’t think one can make advances towards a computer.” She snorted.
“And here I thought I was so ‘human.’ The memory wheels should be positioned similarly to the maid's, at least I hope. This system is obviously different than the last. It’s like they built the robot around a man’s full body, rather than just incorporating certain organs. The skeleton appears to be fully intact.”
“Can we not talk about that while I’m wrist deep inside it?” Nyssa moved aside some wires and found the programming box. The memory wheels slipped easily from their fastenings.
“There’s a slot on top of the RAM. You can insert the wheel in that. If it is audio, do you want to hear it? It could be unnerving.”
Nyssa sat cross-legged and took the RAM from her laces. The memory wheel fit the slot perfectly. “I think I’d rather be frightened but informed than blissfully ignorant. Let me have it.”
The RAM sucked in the wheel. Immediately lines of light began their dance across the mirror’s surface, accompanied by a clicking noise.
“All right. I have the files. There’s a lot more here, but it mostly involves security protocols, any time they were activated in the last few years … Oh blast … looks like they did take down an intruder at one point.”
Nyssa’s grip tightened on the RAM’s handle. One of Albriet’s agents? Or top-hat man’s? Either way, at least I know someone got this far before me.
“Any record of what happened to him?”
“Disposal records. Looks like he or she didn’t make it.”
Nyssa took a moment to consider her own lack of reaction to this news. Am I growing jaded already? So much death … how did I ever get mixed up in this? “Anything about … who this was before?” She placed her hand on the suit’s leg. The knight’s victim might be unnamed and unknowable, but the knight himself
had been a human too. He … or she … deserved some deference.
“Not a name, but I’ve got another audio file. Looks like something recorded pre-conversion. Are you sure you want to hear it?”
She nodded, her teeth clenched.
“All right then.”
The RAM glowed blue and a deep voice rose from it. “Where’s Master Ellis? Professor, no one has seen your son in days, and the staff is starting to worry, what with all these strange new systems you’ve put in place. Some are contemplating quitting … what? Me? No, sir, I’ve served you for nearly two decades. I will never leave you or your family, but where is Master Ellis? The staff would be greatly pacified if they could only speak with him … what is that? Professor, put that syringe down. Stop!”
The voice fizzled out. Nyssa’s heart pounded.
“I think I know who he was,” Hart said. “There weren’t many staff members with that length of service. Yancy, the butler, and his wife, Mary, were the only two.”
Nyssa glanced up at the gray bones within the metal armor. Knowing the name didn’t make it any less horrible. “So you knew him?”
“Yes, it’s hazy, but I have the face. I remember him being human and then just being gone. Why didn't I question that? How long were these conversions going on under my very nose?”
“You don’t have a nose.” She forced a smile.
“I’m not in the mood. And who is Master Ellis?”
Nyssa blinked. “What do you mean who is Master Ellis? Even I know that.”
“He’s not in my records of the household staff,” Hart insisted.
“Of course not. He’s Professor Dalhart’s son … or was. Do you think … Dalhart wouldn’t have converted his own son into one of these monsters, would he?”
“I have a hard time contemplating him turning a house fly into a monster. This isn’t right. Why don’t I have any record of him?”
Something itched in the back of Nyssa’s brain, a half-formed thought that left her uneasy. All these converted creatures are basically bodies deprived of their minds. Hart is a mind without a body. What if he had one once?
“Is there anything else about Master Ellis?” She leaned closer to Hart.
The RAM hummed then clicked. “A bit. Yancy’s memories are more intact than the maid’s, as if he remained sentient longer, possibly because of how he was converted. The machine recorded his memories for at least a few weeks, too long for me to play it all, but if you can give me a minute, I can give you a quick digest.”
Nyssa swallowed. She remembered leaning up against the larger mirror and feeling Hart’s warmth through it, almost like touching another person. What if he is another person? What if Hart is Ellis?
Chapter Eight
Hart's examination of the memory wheel took much longer than the promised minute. Nyssa had nearly drifted off to sleep when he finally said, “I’ve got through all the viable data.”
She sat up, stood, and stretched her legs. The light through the high windows was fainter now, suggesting the day was drawing to an end. Her stomach gnawed at itself.
I wish I’d thought to ask Albriet for some provisions. Can’t really eat lockpicks.
“What did you find?” she asked, holding the RAM up.
“I found out a bit about the conversion process. It’s extremely complex, the linking of organic and electronic components. The idea is to combine the best aspects of both—the self-healing and adaptive capabilities of the human body and the resilience and speed of electronics—to create a longer lasting, more capable hybrid.” The lights zipped back and forth across the screen like anxious fireflies. “The potential applications are staggering: a man loses his arm, integrate a mechanical limb that responds as his own. You could give a human the ability to make calculations with the speed of a computer while still maintaining the creativity and unpredictability of imagination. It’s like the perfect marriage of science and nature.”
“Tell that to Yancy.” Nyssa scowled. She stuck the RAM back into her belt.
“Yes, well, the application here is obviously being used for much darker purposes. Also, it isn't working as intended. The conversion killed Yancy, not immediately, but within a few days, and during those days he was in extreme anguish, both mentally and physically. When he perished, certain organic components were electronically bolstered to continue. The memory wheels recorded his vital signs, and his brainwaves ceased several weeks before heart and lung function. Whatever the professor was trying to do—make robots more human or humans more robotic—it failed. Considering the maid, I’m not sure he ever succeeded in creating a working hybrid. He managed to keep the heart going for much longer than with Yancy, but not the brain.”
Nyssa faced the knight. Removing the screws from her pocket, she fastened the breastplate back in place, hiding the bones.
It’s not exactly a good Christian burial, but at least he’s not on display like a lab specimen.
“I can’t imagine … trapped inside here, knowing what you once were, what you should be? How could you bear it?”
“By thinking about what you have to live for, at least that’s what Yancy tried to do.”
Nyssa rubbed her arms.
“He thought about Mary, his wife, a lot. Some of that was quite intimate. I did my best to skim over without gawking, but also, surprisingly, there’s a lot about both the professor and this Ellis character. Seems like he’d worked for them so long, they were sort of his family.” The quiet hum from the RAM rose in pitch until it sounded almost like a sigh. “Imagine being betrayed by someone you trusted that way.”
“And Ellis?” Nyssa forced her voice steady.
“I guess he was only about fifteen. He was badly injured some time before Yancy’s conversion, in the accident that killed the professor’s wife. Yancy and Mary cared for him in his illness, but he was confined to a wheelchair.”
Nyssa’s ears twitched. “You said that this technology could replace a man’s arm. Do you think it could allow a cripple to walk?”
“Easily.”
Her breath quickened. “Imagine you’re the professor. You have materially everything you can give your child, but ill-luck deprives him of one thing you can’t provide: health. What wouldn’t you do to heal him?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Maybe start butchering and experimenting on my trusted friends and employees?” Hart’s voice almost creaked from its own dryness.
“I’m not saying it’s justified, but if you’re already eccentric and recently had the shock of losing your wife?” She forced her mouth shut and let out a long breath through her nose. “It may have triggered his madness.”
“You’re the one defending the professor now?”
“The professor, not the creator?” She placed her hand on the frame of the RAM, wishing he could feel her touch.
“Creator isn’t a title you give to someone who causes such destruction.”
What about 'Father'? Oh please, God, let me be wrong. If Hart is what I think he is, then he has a soul to crush, and I don’t think he deserves that.
She cleared her throat. “Do you want to keep going?”
“Yes. You still need to get through this, right? Also, I want to know what happened to Dalhart himself. He needs to pay for what he did. Yancy was a good man, a husband, a foster father to a young invalid. He deserved a better end than that.”
Nyssa walked through the hall, trying not to think of the other knights and who might be entombed inside them. Another curtain covered the far end of the space. She flipped her goggles to x-ray and found a solid wall beyond. “I thought you said there was a staircase here?”
“There should be.”
She scanned the area. A rectangular outline glimmered like a beacon in the corner. Pushing back the curtain, she examined the seemingly solid oak paneling. Skillfully rendered vines and flowers twined up the edge. She brushed her hand over them, and the leaves of one vine gave beneath her fingertips. “Buttons?”
“Oh yes, I remember now. It�
��s a code. Third leaf from the bottom left, first on the bottom right, then fourth from the bottom left.”
“Pi again, huh?” She chuckled.
“Stick with what works.”
She pressed the three leaves. The panel squeaked as it slid to one side.
“Needs to be oiled,” Hart said.
“I’ll get right on that.” Nyssa rolled her eyes.
A dark passage lay before her, the air cold and stagnant.
“We’ll need to be on the lookout for security systems,” Hart said. “The lab was the professor’s fortress. He kept all his private documents, his schematics, and of course the backups and controls for me. It’s the brain of the household, an extension of the professor himself. If we can reach the lab, we might be able to find a way to disable any active robotic systems. It won’t make it right, but it's the closest we can come to laying these souls to rest.”
Nyssa switched her goggles back to night-vision. An open-shelled, spiral staircase rose for about twenty feet before ending at a circular hatch with a handwheel. Dust coated every step.
She placed her feet on the first step. It creaked but held her weight. Gripping the rail with one hand and the RAM’s handle with the other, she ascended. The platform beneath the hatch was a slim half-circle of rusty metal. She had to stoop to avoid hitting her head on the wheel.
“So … what happens to you when I’m finished here? I get to hand over the files Rivera wants and find myself some place warm and sunny to start over, but you? What would be happily ever after for you?” Placing the RAM back in her belt, she put her shoulder against the wheel. It groaned but didn’t move. “Dang. I may have to oil it.”
“I don’t know. My purpose here was household maintenance, but my programming has endless applications. My hardware isn’t that bulky. If you can take me with you, I can easily download myself into another system. I don’t want to end up in sleep mode until my circuits deteriorate.”
