Binary, page 13
“It’s beautiful,” I answered.
His movements were convincing. His flesh was as forgiving as his eyes, but his demeanor remained humble.
I reached out for a second handshake with concern, but never broke eye contact. He looked down at my hand and took a hold of it, then those eyes found their way to mine. His grip was of unexpected softness.
I looked downward and rubbed the tips of my fingers against the palm of my hand. The handshake was lifelike.
“Do I feel real?” asked Bruce.
“Your hand certainly does,” I answered.
“What about the rest of me?” asked Bruce.
I shook my head. “I don’t know.”
He held out his arm. I had to see. He had to know.
I kept reminding myself it was all part of his programming and to hold fast to what Dr. Schultz said about not letting him fool me. Reasons for his concerns had become clear. I knew he was more than a machine, but he was still a machine.
“Last time you hurt me, Bruce,” I said.
He looked down and around the room for a suitable response while running the incident through his processors. He even appeared remorseful as he lowered his arm to step away. “I am sorry.”
His ability to simulate concern was convincing as I reached for his hand again. He did not pull away like I thought he would. Relief filled me. Jitters were the last thing I needed from him.
I took his hand in mine and pulled his arm to me, touching his flesh. Remarkably, he was as real as me and the world around him. At least, it felt that way.
He studied the sensations as my fingertips edged up his arm. I slowed my movements, easing my touch to the point of communicating with the hairs on his arm alone. He pulled his arm back and rubbed it before looking back up to me, then back down as he kept rubbing to take in the sensations.
“Are you alright?” I asked.
The automaton before me seemed to be a living creature, but he was not. I could not allow myself to think of him that way. Not completely. Not yet.
He reached up and brushed my cheek gently with his hand. His touch was softer than butterfly scales. So much passion; so much life in his touch. I momentarily forgot he was without a pulse.
I had never connected with someone that way. It took a second for it to sink in. My heart was drifting. I stepped away.
“Did I hurt you?” asked Bruce.
“No,” I answered, “but I need to ask Dr. Landry something.”
“Not yet,” said Bruce
“Not yet what?” I asked.
“Do not go yet,” he answered. “I want to talk to you.”
“Bruce,” I said. “I have to.”
“Why?” he asked.
I went to move around him. His hands opened, motioning for me to stay.
“But...” said Bruce.
He shifted position to stay in front of me. Then said my name and matched my movements when I attempted to go the other direction. I stopped to look at him, swallowing hard to hide my heartbeat and fearful of how far he would take such actions.
My rear bumped into the table as I moved back, eyes shooting to the handprint. For the first time since I woke at the X.R.E. Compound, I was accepting the fact I was dealing with something that could crush me like a potato chip on a New York sidewalk. He could do it before anybody got into the room. The mirror was only there so they could watch.
“Listen,” I said. “I need to find out what they changed in your programming before I can work with you.”
“They have never programmed me,” said Bruce.
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“I do not want you to go,” said Bruce. “They will hurt you.”
“What do you mean, they’ll hurt me?” I asked. “Who do you mean when you say they, and why do you think they’re going to hurt me?”
Bruce glanced at the two-way mirror. “They.”
His inflection caught me by surprise. There was something honest about it. Unadulterated.
“No one’s going to hurt me,” I said.
“But...” His words fumbled. “If...”
I made another attempt to step past him, but he stepped in front of me, grabbing my shoulders to lock me in place. He did not hurt me, but the power was there. There had to be a way to reason with the confused machine.
“Bruce,” I said, “you need to let—”
“Do not leave,” he interrupted.
I looked into the two-way mirror and to the entrance corridor. Part of me was hoping someone was on their way to help. Another part of me felt I could talk him through it.
My biggest fear for Bruce’s safety was Pope entering the room with the other guards. How would it go? Would they be intimidated and trigger-happy?
There was not any room left in the equation for aggression. No matter the facts, I was becoming increasingly concerned with my safety. Something had to give.
I made candid eye contact with him. “You’re scaring me, Bruce.”
“I am not trying—”
The door to the Social Room flew open and Pope entered with a few guards in tow. They must have overridden the corridor’s entrance protocols. I never heard its decontamination process activate.
Their odd-looking firearms came to life when they raised them, vibrating momentarily with surface electricity. The room hummed. Currents of purple pulsed beneath them. The mouths of the weapons opened to release a pair of small, glowing red prongs.
“Wait,” I urged with Bruce easing me behind him.
“Back away from her,” said Pope. “This isn’t—”
“No,” interrupted Bruce.
I knew the situation was unsalvageable the moment Crane, Landry, and Schultz entered the room.
“You are going to hurt her,” said Bruce. “Like you tried to hurt the Heart Device.”
“We were trying to access it,” said Dr. Crane. “To learn about you.”
“You wish to weaponize,” said Bruce.
“Not us,” said Dr. Crane.
“No one’s here to hurt anyone,” interjected Dr. Landry.
Pope took aggressive posture. “I’m not asking you again.”
“Desmond,” said Dr. Crane, “lower your weapon.”
Bruce’s mien shifted. It was subtle. Threatening.
Pope held his weapon high and moved to an angle at Bruce’s left like a dog with the hairs on its back standing on end. I did not know whether he was going to bite, but Bruce kept himself between us. I could no longer tell who was protecting me from who.
“Bruce,” I urged, “you have to listen to them.”
They were saying everything they could to get the mechanized man to listen, but they could not sway him. He was determined they were going to hurt me. A verbal tug-o-war was underway, and Pope was every bit as unwavering on my safety as Bruce.
“Mr. Pope,” said Dr. Crane, “your weapon.”
“Not going to happen,” said Pope.
If Pope was holding his ground, Bruce would not give an inch.
“Maybe if you just lowered your weapon,” I said, “then Bruce—”
“Again,” interrupted Pope, “Not going to happen.”
Dr. Schultz stepped forward. “Let’s... let’s all just sta... stay rational here. It... it obviously thinks yu... you’re going to hurt Alexis.”
“Keep your distance, Schultz,” said Pope. “You know as well as I do this thing is dangerous.”
Perhaps allowing a machine so technologically advanced to further its own evolution was the equivalent of playing cybernetic Russian roulette.
“Bruce,” I said, “they’re not going to hurt me.”
“Yes, Alexis.” Bruce scanned the room. “They are.”
Dr. Crane motioned me subtly to her side. I questioned it before moving: What if I was not fast enough and Bruce grabbed me? Hurt me? What if Pope fired?
My eyes went to Pope’s weapon. My body ducked to the left. The world slowed as I tried to pass Bruce, but his left arm came out in front of me and slammed into the wall at my side. The impact was deafening. His palm rested in a newly formed indentation.
The guards moved in. Shots rang out, but I was in their way, and they could not fire freely. It meant they would not hit me or Bruce with lethal shots, but it also meant they would have a harder time ending the conflict.
One of the guards reached for me. Bruce dipped and grabbed Pope’s weapon, dragging him forward before he could reach me. It happened too quick. I could not move in time. They both slammed into me, and I fell.
I glimpsed Bruce lacing into the guard that tried to grab me as I spilled backward. My head must have hit something. I saw only a purple flash of light from Pope’s weapon before everything went black.
Chapter 18
Blitzkrieg
I SAW ONLY FLICKERS of my existence. Glimpses of chaos. I could not make out the compound through fuzzy eyes, but I knew pandemonium was afoot. Each flash revealed a new location or image telling me I was in grave jeopardy.
I was fading in and out of consciousness beneath the cradling arm of a kidnapper that thought he was rescuing me. It was surreal, yet there I was in the clutches of madness. A fairy-tale gone awry.
My subconscious writhed to keep an eye open, but my mind was no longer in control. My lids would only keep open for short stints. I was helpless.
Interior walls of the compound flying by were the first thing I saw after everything went black. The thick ceramic doors, the cold tile flooring hitting my cheek when he dropped me, and the stainless-steel walls zooming by told me he had not taken me from the compound yet; and the pressure of his arm wrapped around my waist pained into my ribs as he carried me through the building.
Guards were calling out behind him, but he would not surrender. He was determined. King Kong to an unwilling Ann Darrow. Even with the added weight of my body, the guards could not keep up; and I did not know where we were when everything went black again.
He must have set me down for a moment because the next thing I recall was him throwing a guard into the ceiling. The impact pushed the guard through the first few inches of the overhead sprinkler system, and it rained old water from its pipes as the battered guard fell to the floor in sync with a monsoon of droplets.
Blackness. Purple flashes. Panic.
Everything was choppy. At any moment, a misplaced discharge from one of the guards’ weapons could hit me.
I opened my eyes to a brilliant flash of light and an explosive concussion. My body hit the wall as fragments fell around me. Random debris. My kidnapper came into view as the flash faded away. He was picking himself up from the floor, clothes tattered and smoking.
He smashed his way into the door next to him as he rose from the ground. I can only assume he reached out to grab and drag me into it with him. I’m not sure. Everything went black again as Desmond Pope, the head of security, and the other guards shouted in the backdrop.
I recall little of anything passed that, but the doctors heading The Project called out my name a few times, panic in every voice. I tried to analyze the situation but could only catch glimpses of what was happening in the surrounding halls. It was a hopeless endeavor.
I knew my captor did not want to hurt me. I could sense what no one else could within him and, right or wrong, I genuinely believed he was concerned about me. Besides, if he wanted to kill me, I would have already been dead.
No one else understood. Nor did they want to. Their only concern was me, and to them, I was in the clutches of Skynet.
Desmond Pope, the guards, and the doctors were trying to rescue me from the machine, but it was hellbent on getting me out of there. I wanted out of the situation and that’s exactly what I got. When I blacked out again, it would be the last I would see of the compound.
Chapter 19
Graduation
FATHER AND I SAT AND listened to the student giving his acceptance speech at the podium. He mandated observation. His words and actions were deliberate, down to the simplest of pauses. I was sitting in admiration by the time he wrapped his acceptance speech.
It was going to be a tough act to follow, but fait accompli. He was done, and they called my name.
Professor Platz, a man I simply called Father, looked at me and smiled. “Are you ready?”
“Not really,” I answered.
My name echoed the field.
The announcer was a tender-hearted lady named Sarah Beddings. She was well-liked and doubled as the school’s long-standing P.R. manager. Her eyes peered my direction through thin-framed reading glasses, and she was not alone in scrutinizing me.
“Come on, Alexis,” continued Ms. Beddings. “You’re up.”
“Well,” said Father, “don’t just sit here gabbing with me.”
I was calm when others were nervous. I did not have a speech planned, but I did not need one. Those around me applauded what they considered a once-in-a-lifetime kind of brilliance: a sea of clapping robes filled with the same professors that once guided me, and countless students in attire matching mine backed all and sundry’s applause with equal enthusiasm.
I walked to the podium, knowing the only certainty in life is the fact that there are no certainties. But people do not want to hear about one’s reservations. At least not during an acceptance speech.
They wanted to hear me answer unasked questions like, “How are you going to change the world?”, “How much does this mean to you?”, and “Where are you going to go from here?” But those were questions I did not have the answers to.
These onlookers believed me to be destined for greatness, but they knew no more about my future than I did. My inner hopes and dreams agreed with them, but the realist in me knew not to count on possibilities. I was confident in my aptitudes; I was gifted but unsure what to do with my life once I left The Institute.
Nothing within me wanted to say goodbye.
The notion’s weight grew as I neared the podium. It was the first time I did not want to move forward in life. I wanted to stay there in my little bubble, to immobilize time, but the professors would not let me. They were all but forcing me to move on.
19-2
Delivery
One foot in front of the other, slow and steady, I reached the stage.
“Overslept, I take it?” asked Ms. Beddings.
“Yeah,” I answered. “Again.”
“We won’t hold it against you,” she said. “After all, you’re the only student here with an excuse for being late all the time.”
She was right. I was often late. It had been that way since the accident.
“Can I get a hug?” asked Ms. Beddings.
“Yeah.” I smiled. “Of course.”
Seconds later, our arms wrapped around one another—an unspoken goodbye.
“Seems like just yesterday you were walking through those doors,” she said, “twelve years old and terrified, but cute as a button.”
“Even with the scar?” I asked.
She pulled me in for another hug. “Scar and all, Alexis.”
I closed my eyes and smiled through an exhale. “I’m going to miss you too, Ms. Beddings.”
“Good.” She pulled herself away. “Now go knock ’em dead.”
She handed me a diploma and a quick handshake before walking from the stage. It was me and the podium as hundreds looked on. I could only hope my utterance would not become a train wreck of jumbled words, thoughts, and fragmented sentences, longing to be beautiful paragraphs upon their delivery.
I waited for the crowd to silence itself.
The trimming on my gown sparkled in the sunlight. Black and gold. These were the colors of a life without burden reflecting what The Institute had promised me. I brushed my hands over its embroidered lettering before looking up to examine the masses.
“I should issue a warning here,” I said. “I don’t have a speech planned this time.”
“Alexis,” James Woodson—twenty-five years old, adopted at nine by Betty and Bill Martin, O-positive blood type—shouted from the crowd.
I had only met him once, and that was at a party. Yet I recollected everything I ever heard him say about his life to me or anyone else around him. There was nothing special about him. I simply remembered.
“Sixteen years a blur...” I reflected. “I think I’ll start by saying this. I’m not leaving because I want to. I love it here. My professors are saying there’s nothing else they can teach me, that I’ve learned all I can learn from them, but that’s simply not true. There’s so much about life... There’s an entire world beyond the theoretical realm of physics that they could teach me. Things I’ve yet to see, things I’m one hundred percent sure I’m wholly unaware of. Things that would spark my imagination in directions it’s yet to be pulled. I know everyone here sees me as something perfect, but I’m not. I’m flawed in so many ways, on so many levels, that you couldn’t imagine. It’s what makes me... me. Beyond this, beyond being human and surviving in our personal bubbles here on the grand world we call Earth, what makes us... us? Details? Anyone?”
Nothing. Crickets would have spoken up if it had not been high noon.
“You’re hot, Alexis,” a fellow graduate cheered from the crowd.
I could not help but laugh. I was not the only female present, and there were a few males there with minds headed toward Neil deGrasse Tyson’s, but females like me were sparse.
“On fire, baby,” another chimed in.
The younger crowd cheered their outbursts, forcing the heads of a few professors to shake. Some in laughter. Some in disapproval.
Surely, I was blushing. Tiny capillaries of clustered blood vessels beneath my cheeks were growing wider for more blood to scurry through them. It tingled, leaving little to no doubt my skin was struggling to churn up a reddened, rosy appearance. But I stayed the course.
“I’ve lived my entire life obsessed,” I continued. “Obsessed with an unquenchable desire to learn and dissect worlds like quantum mechanics, peppered with the urge to find out, from a scientific perspective, what makes life... life. What makes us... us. Each night for the past ten or twelve years I’ve laid in bed wondering. Wondering where the line’s drawn with sentient life. At what point of intelligence and self-recognition does something earn this label? Why are some of the most intimately trained primates in existence denied the sentient title when their intellects and ASL vocabularies surpass many of society’s fifth graders? The same primates that get separation anxiety when their handlers leave, that cry when their children die, are denied the title of humanity, while we grant it freely to individuals born so biologically impaired that they are, in fact, unaware of their own existence.”
