Officer Brayton Hills walked up the stark marble steps of the American Technological Design Corporation building with Agent Grant Keller of the Better Technologies Union. They both met, stepping out of their taxies on the concrete out front. Both stared up at the foreboding structure, a grey slab erected midst a million other monolith like building of the city. Officer Hills took a breath and sighed.
“I hate this place,” he said, shaking his head.
The air was frigid, littered with vapors trailing from the taxies and gutter drains. The building stood as a figure of perfection, erect and clean. It was perhaps the only “perfect” thing in the city. Rubble and remains of the former city still stood in parts and was only partially removed for the newer, finer, more modern structures. People, homeless from the Urban War, displaced as garbage like the littered rags and scraps of debris around them. Despair was evident in their faces, voicelessly screaming that even God could not save them from their hellish life. They called to the two men as they passed. It was all Officer Hills could do to ignore them.
He gritted his teeth. As a Police Regulator, he heard their cries all over the city. Most were left unheard.
Agent Keller stepped briskly up to the com box and pressed the button. They could hear a dim buzz through the steel door. Officer Hills shook his head and then joined Keller at the entrance. A soft pressured blast of air blew the hair back from the faces of the men as the door opened. Sterile pine aroma accompanied the air and enveloped them. Agent Keller marched directly into the marble tiled foyer with Officer Hills grudgingly walking behind.
“I hate this place,” Hills said again.
*
A technician carefully slid the thumb sized chip into the cargo slot of the android’s skull. The slot was a new addition to the machine, new metal with protective casings to preserve the delicate piece. He pushed the slot lid into place and pulled the skull shell back over the newly fitted hole. False hair was refitted and fastened. Patting the android on the head, he nodded to his fellow worker at the BTU building.
“All ready to go. Is she programmed yet?” the technician said as he stepped off the stool.
A man in a green lab coat nodded, pulling a cord out of the android’s wrist. Two exposed portals, a centimeter in diameter, were quickly covered by its durable elastic-skin.
“This one was a little stubborn. I had to re-sort her memory chip to fit directions. This TAMA should be retired,” he said.
The first technician nodded. “Oh, it will be. I hear ATCD is coming out with a new model so we won’t have to use these anymore.”
Nodding as he collected input cables off the android, the second man said, “I’m glad. These models give me the creeps. Just looking at her file I’d say she’s killed more than a hundred people.”
“That’s five hundred-eighty-six to be exact. I read her by-line.”
The green suited technician stared back at his friend and winced. “That many?”
The other nodded nonchalantly. “She was a good one. That’s why they haven’t scrapped her yet.”
The technician stepped in front of the android and pried her mouth open. Taking a dental-like pick he touched the node in her right back molar. The android blinked her eyes twice. A more natural expression lit her face, and she stared curiously at the two men.
The green suited technician took a tense breath and snuck another one before speaking.
“You have your orders. Go.” He stepped back hesitantly, wondering if the TAMA had processed the information that he had given her.
The model blinked her eyes again, cocking her head as she read the instructions in her circuits. Lifting her chin at completion, she sharply nodded to the two men and marched toward the lab door.
Both men audibly sighed in relief.
“She’s off,” the first said.
“Good.” The man in the green suit wiped a bead of perspiration off of his forehead.
*
“Welcome!” Dale Keynes greeted them flamboyantly throwing his arms open as if he wanted to hug both men.
Agent Keller smiled and stepped toward them man, extending his business arm for a good shake. Keynes met the hand with his own friendly grip and wrapped his arm around the man’s back, firmly patting him. Officer Hills stood with his hands in his pockets, waiting for the two business men to end their fond greetings.
Stepping forward, Hills said, “Mr. Keynes….”
Smiling, “I’m sorry Officer Hills. I know you have a pressing schedule.” Keynes quickly shook the officer’s hand and led with his other. “This way please.”
Officer Hills held back. “I hate to be so blunt, but I came here to talk with the business at hand and have no time for the tour.”
Mr. Keynes smiled, glancing back at the agent sent from BTU who also came to protect his interests.
“Of course. You’ll want to see the lab first,” he said, continuing to point the way.
Officer Hills held his head higher, sterner, repeating himself. “I have no time for a tour.”
“The lab, sir. You will want to see the lab,” Mr. Keynes insisted, still smiling.
Agent Keller nodded. “It’s all right, Officer Hills. You’ll get all your answers in the lab.It should be here soon.”
“What will be here?” Hills skeptically asked.
“The TAMA,” Keller said.
Officer Hills cocked his head and shook it slightly. He closed his eyes briefly and sighed with disgust.
“I see.”
*
The TAMA left the Better Technologies Union building that stood on the edge of the city. The land about the building was barren for thirty yards. What lawn the building once had was now dark and charred. Few patches of surviving grass peeked out of the soil, but little of it survived the toxic air and rains. The TAMA stood as the only form of “life” on the terrain.
She marched out the front gate, looking like a dignified soldier dressed in her decorative uniform. Her pace took her directly into the city. Many eyes watched from the streets and out of windows, staring at her. Her form stuck out, anomalous. Her perfect fabricated hair lay slick against her skull, and her perfectly crafted face denoted a sensible beauty. She walked with large swift steps, stepping over and around obstacles such as bent metal and rubble. Her trail took her through dingy roads and highly traversed alleyways. The masses watched her perfectly clean form weed through the crowds of the ragged and impoverished. People parted as she passed through. Occasional jeers yelled out of the crowd, ignored by the android, which had no feelings. She continued to march.
“Murderer!” a man shouted through dozens of people in the barter market.
“Demon metal!” another yelled.
“Tin can trash!” a third cursed.
Echoes of dissident voices accompanied harsher calls.
The TAMA marched on.
Someone threw a rock, missing the android by a foot. She stopped. She turned her head and scanned through the crowd, and then she glanced back down at the rock. The android continued her march.
Another rock was thrown.
The rock struck her shoulder. The TAMA stopped again, this time hit by a third rock. It smacked her in the face, crashing into the protective casing and elastic-skin near her eye. She narrowed her eyes, glaring with more intent focus on the mob of people that surrounded her. The crowd did not wait for the android to act. The memory of the Urban War was still too vivid to forget. A shower of rocks and wood and anything else they could grab pelted the TAMA. Instinctively, the android reached down to her right thigh, feeling for the gun that had so regularly been there in the past. The space was now empty, as it had been supposed that a gun was no longer necessary, being now a transport android and not a war machine.
Amidst all the confusion, a small metallic object shot at the android, latching onto her back, clenching into the wire network under the elastic-skin. The tack-sized machine immediately flashed white, sending a shock through the android’s system. Darts and rivets of electricity zipped across her casing, jumping from nodes and exposed portals in her eyes and mouth, running down her arms and chest. Within a minute, the electrical commotion ceased. She staggered and fell, staring open-eyed at the cracked asphalt.
The watching crowd stirred, afraid of the machine as it lay on the dark tar road. Cautious, a man wearing a shabby ski cap and a large denim coat stepped forward and poked his walking stick at the prone shape. It didn’t move. He smiled back at the others behind him, jerking his head toward the TAMA.
The crowd immediately pounced on the android, cheering and tearing at the uniform. They pulled off the badges, ripped open her finely sewn double-breasted suit coat, tore open her pressed blouse, and pried open transport cavities in her stomach and legs. Men cursed at the lack of cargo, both spaces quite empty, and satisfied themselves instead with jumping on and slamming metal pipes into the body shell. The casing barely dented, fortified well for war.
They left the android among the debris in an off alley near the market, covered with cardboard, newspapers and discarded food waste.
*
Officer Hills refused the chair Mr. Keynes offered him, wandering around the lab, poking and peering at the projects in the room.
Looking up, Hills asked, “So, when is it going to get here?”
Agent Keller gave Mr. Keynes a tired look, bored with the officer’s company. Mr. Keynes kept up his cheery appearance and glanced at his watch.
“It should be here soon. It travels by foot, you know.”
Hills huffed. He fingered a fabricated arm that lay on a shelf, watching the rods and ball joints interact with each touch. Glancing up, Officer Hills stared at Mr. Keynes, frowning.
Mr. Keynes cleared his throat. “How about I start explaining now?”
Agent Keller nodded in agreement, feeling the discomfort in the room.
“’K.” Hills leaned against the table and folded his arms across his chest.
It was Agent Keller that started to speak. “We have created a chip.”
Officer Hills narrowed his eyes in skepticism. “So?”
Keller continued. “It is an intelligence chip.”
Hills rolled his eyes. Old news.
Mr. Keynes jumped in, “He means an awareness chip.”
Officer Hills unfolded his arms and leaned forward. “A what?”
Agent Keller explained. “At BTU we have developed a chip that can be integrated into an android’s brain to allow it to become aware. I don’t mean an information collector or a problem solver. It is more like a chip that helps a machine understand.”
Standing back, Officer Hills stared at them. “You mean to tell me to created a chip that makes a robot become a what? A philosopher?” Officer Hills shook his head. “What use is that?”
“An android, not a robot. There is a difference.” Mr. Keynes tried to explain, lifting his finger in a teacher-like way.
“Hold it! You made a ship for an android like a TAMA!” Hills shook his head, infuriated. “You can’t and shouldn’t do that! Those things are ruthless. They kill and have no sympathy! If they understood what they could do what’s to stop them from taking over.” He shook his head again at the thought.
Mr. Keynes smiled and waved his arms for Officer Hills to calm down. “No, no. Of course not. The TAMAs and the TAMOs will all be discontinued. We are working on a new model, the TAME.”
Angrier, Hills yelled, “A new android!? Haven’t the old ones done enough damage?”
Trying to explain, Agent Keller motioned to Officer Hills to sit down. The officer refused, scowling.
“Hills, the TAME is more obedient than the TAMA,” Keller said calmly.
Mr. Keynes took over. “The original Transport Android… ”
“Tactical Android,” Hills insisted.
Nodding, Mr, Keynes said, “Yes, Tactical Android it originally was called, it was designed for war. The Tactical Android Model Alpha is suited for survival, for battle, same as for the TA Model Omega, our male model. The TA Model Epsilon is different. It is female in design, and its initial programming is for obedience first, survival second.”
Hills nodded. “Unlike the TAMA which is the reverse. Survival first, obedience second.”
“Right,” Mr. Keynes affirmed.
Officer Hills shook his head in distaste. “I had heard of cases where a TAMA attacked its commanding officer and human operator, killing them when ordered to a suicide mission. I have even heard of cases where when injured they incorporated their weapons into their own circuitry for survival.”
“I know,” Keynes agreed. “It was thought that if the android had a strong survival instinct it would do more to fight against the enemy, think more skillfully if motivated by a fear for its own life. We now know that was foolish.”
Hills decided to take the seat next to Agent Keller. “So, why the chip?”
“Well, the TAME, obedient as it is, lacks a certain spark that kept the TAMA going. TAMAs almost seemed alive,” Mr. Keynes explained.
“Alive, huh? That soulless scrap of…?” Hills muttered under his breath.
“Without the chip the TAME would be just another robot.” Mr. Keynes smiled and nodded to Agent Keller.
“We feel this chip will give us a useful android for this era of peace,” Agent Keller said.
Officer Hills huffed sarcastically, era of peace indeed.
*
A buzz and a click could barely be heard under the roar of merchants and shoppers in the market. No one heard the creak and reverberating hum of the machine below a pile of papers. The TAMA repaired herself, scrambling what energy and materials she could find from her surroundings. Her logic and directional circuits had been damaged. She unconsciously sought anything to repair herself to fulfill her programmed duty. She had to deliver the chip.
The chip.
Her cognitive functions buzzed and puzzled. She knew what was most important. She had to survive first. She immediately integrated chip stored in her brain.
*
“It’s about time, don’t you think?” Agent Keller said, looking at his watch.
Mr. Keynes nodded. His smile had somehow dripped off of his face, now touched with concern. “I wonder what is taking her?”
Officer Hills smirked with some amusement. “Perhaps we should put out a search party.”
Mr. Keynes frowned. “No. This is odd. We sent out TAMA code forty-eight out. She has been the most reliable of all our transport androids.”
Officer Hills glanced up at Keynes at hearing the number. “Forty-eight, did you say?”
“Forty-eight,” Hills said again, biting the inside of his cheek and cocking his head at the irony. He stood up and turned to Mr. Keynes. “Do you have a tracer on it?”
Motioning out the door, Mr. Keynes complied. “It is in the radio room down the hall.”
Officer Hills immediately stepped out of the room. Agent Keller followed the men down the hall.
“What? Does it matter?” Keller asked.
Hills said, breathing heavily as he spoke to Mr. Keynes, “Here?”
“Yes, here.” Mr. Keynes stepped aside as Officer Hills marched into the room. He quickly ordered the men to hone in on the android’s frequency. They complied, following the looks of their boss, Mr. Keynes, who looked terrified for the first time they ever saw him.
“Where is it?” Officer Hills’ voice grew louder, sterner, as he frantically stared at the wide screen picturing a map of the city.
“What is it Hills? Why should the code number matter? A TAMA is a TAMA,” Agent Keller asked, pressing for what Hill’s was not saying aloud.
Hills ignored him.
“There!” he said, pointing to the blip near the open-air market five miles from the ATDC building.
“Hills!” Keller insisted.
Turning to the BTU agent, Officer Hills said, “TAMA forty-eight was known as the slaughter-machine.” Then more directly, he added, “It killed my brother in the war, and I’m not going to let that thing have that chip—especially if it is damaged.”
“It is traveling off course,” one of the attendants said, alerting the officer.
“I knew it,” Hills grumbled to himself. He turned and headed for the door. “I’m going after it.”
Mr. Keynes nodded, running his hands through his hair and down his paling face. Agent Keller ran quickly after Officer Hills.
*
The TAMA staggered northward, away from the crowds and the echoing noise that seemed to come from them. She felt disoriented, rather battered and drunk, staggering and clasping the wall for balance. Her nice suit was ripped, soiled and shredded. Newspaper stuck to her hair and blocked her sight for a moment. She clasped the paper with her hand, pulling it off, inadvertently grasping her own locks of hair and pulling it out of place. It didn’t matter. Her elastic-skin looked so roughed up and soiled it was as if she had lived on those streets all her life. She no longer had her coat. Now her hair was mussed up, sticking in random directions like many around her. People walked by her without notice.
The android continued to stagger down the street, trying to adjust her inner balance mechanism. Bracing herself against a wall, she stared at her surroundings. Old men burned by years-old fires in the by-gone war sat among the waste. The TAMA recalled the fires she had started and used in the war, surely scarring if not killing many. Images of their corpses stood etched and fresh in her perfect celled memory. Each face, each body that had been catalogued and recorded gained new significance in her opening mind. Those people were also trying to survive.
Young children ran past her legs, dressed in scraps and rags. Orphans of her own handiwork. She knew their parents fought against the mechanical armies and lost. She lifted her arm off the wall, holding steady as she stood. It was covered in charcoal and ash. Homes, hollowed and gutted by fire, now stood unlivable. She also caused this, she knew.
The android continued to walk up the alley staring and watching the figures she passed. The alley opened into a street, once a major Broadway, now in ruins. A small church, half rubble, with its stained glass windows shattered, stood across on the opposite side of the road. “And the Truth will set you free” written in plastic letters yellowed on a marquis that dangled from a precociously hammered nail next to the door. A priest walked up and down the steps, tending to the sick and dirty that sat there. His robe was worn and ratty as the next man, and his hair was thinning at the back of his head. The TAMA walked slowly, staring at the building in a newly acquired awe.
“What is it, my dear?” the priest asked her as she approached the doors.
The TAMA looked up and around and vocalized for the first time in hours. “What is this place?”
The priest smiled, holding his Bible closer to his chest. “It is the house of God.”
The TAMA looked down at the man quizzically. “Who is God?”
“He is our Creator.”
“Creator?” The TAMA wondered. Her circuits were shorting, and she knew she had to find her creators soon. Where, she was not sure. That information had been lost in the attack.
“I need input,” she said.
Handing her the book, the priest replied, “The word of God will guide you, my child.”
Taking it, she fingered the pages in her hand. She looked up at the man and gave a hesitant, militaristic nod. He smiled and led her through the crumbled door to the chapel.
*
Officer Hills’ police escort came as requested. Agent Keller sat impatiently in the car with Hills rubbing his hands and moaning to himself.
“That chip. I have to save that chip. It is the only one of its kind.”
Hills turned to him, more out of annoyance than curiosity. “You made only one?”
Shaking his head in agony, Agent Keller snapped. “It was a test. Today we were going to test it out, to see if it really worked. It was a one shot deal. The government has been trying to shut down the BTU, and this was our last try to prove to them we are useful, that they need to keep contract with us and not just with the ATDC.”
Officer Hills squinted his eyes, trying to comprehend. “So the TAME won’t be created?”
Agent Keller shook his head. “No, the TAME has a long future. It will just be a stupid android. More disposable, that sort of thing.” Agent Keller ran his fingers through his hair. “I’m dead.”
The cars drove up to the dilapidated church building, scattering the people that sat on the curb. The Police Regulators ran swiftly out of each vehicle and positioned themselves around the building. Civilians scrambled off the steps, many hobbling and screaming, taking cover in the alleys under the rubbish. The officers noticed one person wearing the TAMA’s coat.
Officer Hills, followed by three other armed men, approached the open door holding their pistols ready. They carefully approached, hoping to surprise the TAMA within. A dark figure stepped from inside to the wide entrance. Each man’s ears waited for the command—alert and ready. It was the priest.
“Out of the way!” Officer Hills ordered.
The priest walked with slow, calculated steps, approaching them.
“What do you want here? This is a house of God.” The man spoke calmly, as not to alarm the armed men.
Officer Hills lowered his weapon carefully. “We are looking for a missing war android. We have traced it here.”
“I have seen no android,” the priest said. “All that are here are seekers of truth.”
Frowning, Hills snapped, “Perhaps it is hiding. Perhaps you missed it.”
The priest smiled. “You are welcome to search, but please leave your guns outside.”
Officer Hills motioned for his men to follow him inside the building. They held their pistols ready.
“I said, please leave your weapons!”
The priest’s polite request was ignored.
They entered the dark hall, stepping down the aisle among the pews. A few people sat bent over, praying, rubbing beads in their hands, crossing themselves, and staring at the broken stained glass image of Christ. When they saw the Regulators, they hurried out of the chapel, many towards the priest that stood in the doorway. One figure sat in the pews, unmoved.
Agent Keller ran up to the side of Officer Hills, recognizing the TAMA at once, battered and filthy and slouching against the back of the pew. The Regulators stood, with guns pointed at the machine, waiting Officer Hills’ orders. Hills walked carefully down the pew to the body. The TAMA’s face was charred, starting from the inside of skull where the chip had been placed and running down to her ash covered fingers. In her hands she held the open Bible to Exodus, chapter twenty.
Hills looked at the pages in her hands and read silently. The Ten Commandments were marked in red and numbered by the hand of the priest. A perplexed smile crossed Officer Hills’ lips. He glanced up and touched the pew that sat in front of the android. Parts were blackened, as were the tips of his fingers as he rubbed them against the charred wood. Burned, perhaps from her own shorting circuitry, were the words, “Thou shalt not kill” written on the pew before her.
Officer Hills shook his head, puzzled. He stepped from the remains and headed back to his men. “Take it away.”
Agent Keller pushed his way through the Regulators and shoved past Officer Hills to the charred android.
“My chip!” He tore at the burnt skull casing. The military shielding still kept his hands out, sturdy and lasting. The metal was fused together.
“It’s gone, Keller. It’s gone.”
Agent Keller froze, staring at the blank face of the machine.
Hills turned from the ashen man and headed out the door of the chapel. He stepped into the grey air of the city. Trash sat littered in the streets and crowds of people watched at a distance, peering at the crumbled building and the shiny dark cars parked outside.
The priest bowed as Officer Hills stepped down the concrete to the street. “Did you find what you were looking for?”
Hills stared at the gray sky above the rubble, beyond the ridged skyscrapers. Chuckling slightly, he answered, “Yes, thank you.”
Leaning in and remarking to the officer, the priest whispered, “It’s too bad, though.”
“What?” Officer Hills said, turning in surprise.
“It’s a shame androids don’t have souls.” The priest turned and walked back up the steps to the church.
Hills watched the man go, wondering if perhaps there was an exception.

Impressum

Tag der Veröffentlichung: 13.11.2009

Alle Rechte vorbehalten