Binary, page 6
It was obvious Dr. Landry admired my accomplishments. I did not want to jade what he thought of me. My approach needed to be subtle, yet on the nose with his professional opinion of my intellectual resourcefulness.
“You built it, right?” I asked.
“We did,” answered Dr. Landry, “but it’s far too complicated to explain over a brief conversation. Even to a mind as staggeringly bright as yours.”
Dr. Landry powered up a monitor. I inched to his side for a closer look. If there were a nerd’s heaven, I was in it.
8-3
Spheres
Dr. Landry typed something into the monitor before pushing its top back. The screen pivoted down until it rested evenly into a receiving indentation. His thumb settled into a small glass circle next to it. The surrounding edges glowed purple for a fraction of a second before disappearing, leaving the monitor’s screen part of the desk itself. A screensaver came to life:
‘eXtreme Robotics and Engineering...’
The words floated into the air above it and rotated.
“Brilliant,” I said.
“Don’t get impressed yet,” said Dr. Landry.
I watched the rotating image as he punched in a few commands on a halo-keyboard drifting up towards his waist along with a matching mouse.
“I thought there wasn’t a name for The Project,” I said.
“There isn’t,” said Dr. Landry, “but many years ago we realized we needed something to refer to when we communicated with each other.”
“So, you came up with eXtreme Robotics and Engineering?” I asked.
“Actually,” answered Dr. Landry, “we developed a random set of letters. X.R.E. It meant nothing, but over time, people turned it into a game of sorts to see who could come up with the best title behind the fake acronym. Dr. Crane won. We’ve had the logo on the computers ever since, but it’s not written in text or mentioned beyond the compound.”
“That’s kind of cool,” I said.
“Didn’t think we were a bunch of geeks,” asked Dr. Landry, “did you?”
“No,” I answered, shaking my head rapidly. “Of course not.”
Dr. Landry smiled. “I’m sure you didn’t.”
A scientist in the lab bumped into Dr. Landry as he bent over to work on something near Bruce’s feet. I had almost forgotten they were there.
“Let’s move over here and give these gentlemen some room to work,” said Dr. Landry. “Shall we?”
“Yeah,” I answered.
The halo-mouse and keyboard moved with him, never leaving their assigned place on his body as he ambled to the side of the desk. I looked on as if it were not happening. It took a second to pull myself from curious thoughts about the technology behind it and move next to him.
A click of the glowing mock mouse commanded the screensaver to disappear, and Dr. Landry typed. His fingers were nimble for their age. Arthritis had not ravaged them like it had Father’s.
A three-dimensional exploding model expanded around us as if we were the center of the universe, phasing through a spectrum of colors as it moved. I turned about to witness it at all angles around me, high and low.
I cupped one of the informational spheres floating around like minor planets between my hands, then peeked my eye in close to cut off the light. It was still there. A captured firefly.
“Impossible,” I said. “This isn’t a projection?”
“No,” answered Dr. Landry. “We’re not sure exactly how it works. We didn’t build this part of the system.”
“Who did?” I asked.
Dr. Landry smiled. “The one in your quarters is even more forward-thinking. It runs off what we’ve learned to call a halo. Put it on, and it’ll do whatever comes to mind if you can keep up with it. We’ve all tried running the system that way, but we simply can’t operate it.”
“Why not?” I asked.
“It’s difficult for us to work with,” answered Dr. Landry
I dropped my brows in interest. “Then why’s it in my quarters?”
“I said it’s difficult for us to work with,” he answered. “I have a feeling you’ll have more luck with it than we did.”
“But why?” I stepped to him. “Am I missing something here?”
“No,” Answered Dr. Landry, “but your mind is still young. You don’t think in the same manner we do here after being locked away from the world for decades. I believe your openness will make it more open to you.”
He manipulated it with the holographic mouse and keyboard, pinching a few with his fingers, like plucking axiomatic falling flower petals from the air and repositioning them to float down another path. It was peculiar. I was having a hard time understanding what I was looking at.
Dr. Landry squatted over aging knees to reach for a small spherical folder that had drifted to the floor. It was one of many. All the spheres had either already come to rest on the floor or were on their way down to it. They looked like little, glowing, ping-pong-sized planets carpeting the lab; and they moved as Dr. Landry’s feet pushed through them on his way to the sphere he was after.
“Here we are,” he said.
“Wouldn’t it be easier if they didn’t drift down like that?” I asked.
“Of course.” Dr. Landry battled to stand back up. “But this technology isn’t within our grasp yet. We’re not sure why they fall the way they do.”
He let it go and the small spherical folder drifted towards the floor again before he pinched it twice. A display of everything within the machine’s internal operating models came forth to boggle the mind.
“Anything you want to know about Bruce’s makeup is right here,” said Dr. Landry.
He sifted through various parts of the model and pinched on one of the amplified areas. Then a second segment of the model, and another. The room became enveloped in the expanding universe.
The virtual exploding diagram of Bruce was something I needed to look at in my spare time. Each clickable portion of the diagram became an explosion of models of its own. Tens of dozens more were available within each of them. The boundless, multilayered, three-dimensional illustrations gave off a fractal sensation as Dr. Landry pinched his way deeper into each proceeding file.
“At this point,” said Dr. Landry, “you can click on anything you want. It’ll pull up any elements that make up the selected component.”
“Elements?” I asked. “Why are elements listed?”
“You asked why we don’t know what its capabilities are going to be,” asked Dr. Landry, “didn’t you?”
He turned his attention back to his creation while I looked at the spheres around me.
“Go ahead,” said Dr. Landry. “Try it.”
His suggestion took but a second to act on. I pinched area after area to learn more about The Project, but gained nothing for all my efforts. Of all my knowledge surrounding the periodic table, there were several elements I did not recognize.
“I know chemistry isn’t my forte,” I said, “but this isn’t for real, is it?”
“Very much so,” answered Dr. Landry.
I hunted for something familiar within the new extension. “But I don’t recognize some elements here.”
“That’s because some are new to the world,” said Dr. Landry. “Forged not only from other elements in the periodic table using processes once thought impossible, but directly from substances once unknown. Some of them we still can’t recreate on our own.”
He reached up and pressed a switch on the wall that brought up a large holographic chart.
“This is the periodic table, as the current world knows it.” He brought up a new image to overlay the old one. “And this is the periodic table, as the world will come to understand it.”
I needed more educating. The second table had well over twice the elements and its shape was that of an imperfect snowflake. I had nothing to compare it to.
“And this is real as well?” I asked.
“Yes,” he answered. “It’s okay if you don’t believe it just yet. You’re not alone. When Dr. Crane first joined us, there were only six additional elements, and she didn’t do too well accepting it herself. She thought we were fools and walked off the job.” The corner of his right cheek wrinkled enough for half a grin. “Took us a full year to get her back. We’re talking forty-plus years ago, of course.”
8-4
Advanced artifacts
My feet made their way back to the phenomenon sitting in that outstanding chair. Everything I was hearing was within my intellectual grasp, but barely. Bruce was the closest thing to a miracle I knew.
“What’s its power source?” I asked.
“Element ninety on the currently known periodic table,” answered Dr. Landry.
“Thorium?” I asked.
Dr. Landry picked up the Heart Device. “What you’re looking at is beyond evolution. We don’t even have a scientific terminology for some of it yet.”
I knew the Heart Device was important to The Project and the future of the mechanized man, but I wanted to decipher what it was. I took an educated guess instead of asking outright. “The Heart Device is an upgrading operating system to link into his current—”
“No,” interrupted Dr. Landry. “It’s impossible to upgrade his current operating system.”
“Why?” I asked. “Who designed it?”
Dr. Landry shook his head. “We don’t know.”
“Then where did it come from?” I continued.
He looked at the others working in the area and back at me. “I’m afraid I’m not at liberty to say.”
“It is from Earth, though,” I asked, “right?”
Dr. Landry contemplated before responding. “Let’s just say we don’t know its origin.”
I must have given him a funny look. I was certain I did, but could not understand why he would have hand-selected me for a project enveloping sixty years of his life to withhold information from me upon my arrival. Impulses said something clandestine was afoot.
He looked at the Heart Device. “The closer the chiliahedron is to Bruce, the more alive he seems to be.”
“Alive?” I asked.
“The A.I. within Bruce...” answered Dr. Landry. “It’s more responsive, and the contents locked within the Heart Device are blacker and more active when it’s close to him. The opposite’s true when it’s removed from his vicinity. We once took it up to the surface twenty miles from the compound. The changes were night and day. When it’s here in this room with him, like it is now, it breathes a tangible existence into our friend here.”
“And what will happen when you link it into him?” I asked.
“We assume a staggering resemblance to life,” answered Dr. Landry, “but we can’t access it. It’s all speculation, of course, but in time we’re hoping you or Bruce will tap into it for us.”
My brows raised. “Me?”
I turned my attention back to the machine. So many queries. Its makeup? Its origins?
“Is Bruce The Project’s end game?” I asked.
“Hmmmmm...” Dr. Landry scratched his bald spot. “Yes... and no.”
Dr. Landry thought about the question as he pushed a small button on the same reflective table his computer disappeared into. I remained fixated on the humanoid when he turned back to me.
There was a beep, and Dr. Crane’s voice echoed into the room. “Go ahead, Dr. Landry.”
“I don’t believe Alexis has had a tour of the facility yet,” said Dr. Landry.
“Orientation,” she said. “Yes. I’ll head over now.”
I looked at the doctor and grinned, taking in how happy she sounded on the other end of the intercom. Her voice had its own aura. I could tell she was somebody easy to get along with. I was glad. It would make getting used to working with a group of temporary strangers easier.
“It’ll be nice to put a face with Dr. Crane’s voice,” I said.
“She’s a wonderful lady,” said Dr. Landry, “and an even better scientist.”
The lab’s contents were still calling my name, but I had to get another look at the skin room before Dr. Crane pulled me away. I took not a single breath as I moved towards the glass. I was in awe, but my concentration was in jeopardy. The machine’s head was turning. Its eyes followed me as I made my way across the laboratory—an odd sensation.
From a scientific perspective, everything in the other room was as amazing as the room I was standing in, but it was different: the entire skin room was an off-colored darker shade of tan; a thin layer of mist floated about from an unknown origin, and the scientists inside were working in thin biohazard suits. One coated the surface of the outstretched skin with the purple chemical.
I put my hand on the window separating us. The glass gave off a curious, animal-like warmth, as if something was living inside it. Breathing. Existing. Yet, it was smooth. It did not seem dangerous, but nothing around me was guaranteed safe either.
The look of the machine, the equipment, and the way everything felt was an original experience. They had built portions of the facility with technology and materials the rest of the living world had yet to see.
“I can’t believe how real the artificial skin looks,” I said.
“It is real,” said Dr. Landry.
I could not help but speculate where the know-how came from as I watched the scientists massage the thick, bright purple chemical into the skin. “I mean, it looks like actual human flesh.”
“It’s close,” said Dr. Landry. “It’s very close.”
“How?” I asked.
Dr. Landry smiled, but he did not answer.
8-5
Meeting Dr. Crane
A high-pitched sound of air rushing from the laboratory’s entrance corridor filled the lab. I was aware of the sound, but too fascinated to care what was going on around me or who was joining us. I would have never known things like that were possible had I not walked into the laboratory and seen it for myself.
Dr. Landry appealed for my attention for what I think was a third time. “Alexis?”
“Yeah?” I answered without looking.
“Why don’t you let Dr. Crane show you your quarters and some other areas of the compound?” he asked.
I was eager to meet anybody deemed skilled enough to work on such a covert project. She was not a disappointment when I turned to face her. Dr. Crane was in her mid to late sixties, a good decade younger than Dr. Landry. She and Dr. Landry made eye contact a few times as she waited for me, smiling. I was not sure if they had a connection beyond work and friendship, but they seemed like they could have had romantic bonds, past or present.
Dr. Crane looked at me with the same prideful smile Dr. Landry did, then moved for the exit door. She stood next to it, waiting patiently. I giggled with anticipation.
“Come on,” said Dr. Crane. “I know it’s a lot to absorb on your first day, but we’ll get through it.”
The door in front of her tall, thin frame opened when she swiped her security pass. A copious sound of the air-tight seal breaking filled the room again.
“I’m going to show you around the facility,” said Dr. Crane, “then you can take some time to adjust.”
I walked to her side, taking one last look at the machine as I passed it by, but it was more curious about me than I was it. Its head turned to follow me. Its lifelike, organic eyes were distracting. They made me uncomfortable. It was macabre to sense someone or something I had just met was so focused on me.
I made myself look forward and continued to Dr. Crane’s side.
As we departed, Dr. Landry announced it was time to take a break, and the scientists removed their outer three layers of gloves, dropping them into a biohazard container. Sterility was a foremost priority within the walls of the compound. It needed to be.
Dr. Crane and I entered the corridor as Dr. Landry fiddled with something near the machine’s feet. The door closed.
I could not tell what he was doing through the small window separating us. Lights attenuated, and a purple hue emoted around his old silhouette as the procedure went underway.
Dr. Landry moved to his left as the process stopped and we exited. When I turned to peek back, a shock wave went through me—Bruce’s lifelike eyes were locked neurotically onto me.
Chapter 9
Touring the layout
I WALKED FROM THE LABORATORY with Dr. Crane and glanced down, noticing the white sneakers adding to her stealthy walk. She preferred comfort over fashion. Her steps were smooth, her words unrushed, and her company intellectually intriguing. Yet, part of me was still stuck with Bruce.
“This,” said Dr. Crane, “is the doorway that leads to our main security hub.”
The man who delivered the package to my home rounded the corner. His hand rested on an unusual sidearm. I double-checked his nametag:
‘POPE’
His body was tense and steps firm. A swordless samurai unbound by the world around him. He was not a man to cross swords with.
Pope’s eyes turned as he sauntered by, and he gave me an icy glare. Even when he looked at me, he did not. The man gave me anxiety.
I turned to watch him for a moment before he rounded another corner down the hallway. His hand never broke contact with the weapon, and he cut me a final glare before disappearing. I had unintentionally stopped to watch him.
“Alexis,” said Dr. Crane, “is everything alright?”
“Yeah.” I caught up with her, looking over my shoulder one last time. Paranoid for unknown reasons. “Did you see the way he looked at me?”
“Who?” asked Dr. Crane.
“The guard,” I answered.
“I did.” She took in a healthy breath of air. “That’s Desmond Pope. Don’t give him too much thought.”
“He doesn’t seem like a cheerful man,” I said.
“He’s not,” said Dr. Crane. “He’s only here because we pay him an absurd amount of money, and he’s everything we were looking for.”
