Sentinels of the Cosmos Trilogy (16 page)

Juan sat between Chase and Ally in the back of a
black SUV, two FBI agents dressed in black suits sat
in the front seat looking official.
“Good to see you man,” Juan opened.
“Cut the act, Juan,” says Chase, as he looks at Juan
and wonders,” just who is this guy?” “Who and what
are you Juan? You’re not my best friend, you were
my handler.”
Juan took out FBI identification and showed it to both
Ally and Chase. There was long silence “So,” Juan
paused and said, “Are you willing to answer a few
questions?”
Chase didn’t say a word.
Juan says, “I was made your partner in the NYPD to
keep an eye on you for the FBI who for some time
have suspected the purposes of EOJ and that the
President himself is a Guard. You were sent to kill me
because I was onto Congressman Dean. You’re not a
human being, and you’re not an American. You’re a
thing,” Juan said.
“That’s supposed to get us to talk to you?” Ally
interjected.
“You’re pretty for a ‘thing,’ you’re Ally, right?” Juan
asked.
“Yes that’s right, and I'm not a thing. I'm a cybernetic
synthetic organism and just as much alive as you are,
maybe more so. I don't judge or have prejudices
against others, as you seem to,” Ally responds.
"Your girlfriend is a bit prickly for a robot," Juan
snickers.
"I'd be careful about what you say about others,"
Chase stands up for Ally, "and she is not my
girlfriend."
Ally looks hurt, "And why not, you kissed me?"
“I’m a friend of Sam’s,” Juan says looking closely at
Ally.
“A friend, that’s hard to believe,” Chase shoots back,
“Sam is dead, a Russian addition to the EOJ central
committee named Ivan Kolinski just shot him."
Juan is stunned, “Oh,” he says and falls back in his
seat silent for a moment and then becomes very angry
and says, “The problem with you Chase is that you
have no sense of right and wrong, you have no
morals, and you have no values. That makes all of
you Guards dangerous. If it was up to me I would
have had all of you destroyed when we first found out
about EOJ.”
Chase replies, “We didn’t kill Sam, humans did.
Guards only kill who or what humans tell them to
kill. These are
your
morals, not ours. But, in fact,
Ivan shot Sam. You claim I don’t know what my
values are? Where are your values or you should ask,
what
are your values? Now, where are you taking
us?”
Juan says, “You know this is all a big game, the FBI
knows about EOJ, EOJ knows about the FBI knowing
and this is why you were sent to kill me. I’ve been
heading up an investigation into the real objectives of
EOJ. You know I liked Sam. He saved my life and I
promised him that I would not destroy either of you.
He said that the two of you were special. So! What’s
so special about a piece of garbage like you or it,” he
says, referring to Ally?”
Chase remains very still and does not speak.
Juan continues aggressively, “You’d better start
speaking or I’m going to…”
Chase instantly grabs Juan by the throat and repeats,
“Where are you taking us?”
The FBI agent, in the front seat who had been
watching the action, responds by placing a gun to
Chase’s forehead. Ally instantly takes the gun out of
the agent’s hand, removes the clip from the gun and
drops it to the car floor. “Don’t do that,” Ally says.
Chase let’s go of Juan’s throat and repeats in a
slightly louder voice, “Where are you taking us?”
Juan grabs his throat and strokes it saying, “Where
would you like to go? Frankly, we just wanted to talk
to you.”
“Right, we want to go to a large hotel and be placed
in a suite on a high floor; we will then speak to you,”
Chase says.
“Sure, no problem; but this is Washington and there
are no high floors, any preference, any specific
hotel?” Juan asks.
“No,” Chase responds.
The three of them are quiet. You can feel the tension
between them.
“This is twice you’ve threatened to kill me,” Juan
complains.
“Juan you're way too dramatic. I was just tickling
your throat,” Chase retorts smiling and continues, “if
I had wanted you dead, you’d have been dead in less
than three seconds but you’ve been playing both
sides. I just read your files. As my handler you’re
getting treatment for your sick daughter and you're an
FBI agent spying on EOJ, naughty, naughty!” Chase
explains mildly.
Juan replies, “You know I tried not to like you. I tried
not to get close to you, knowing you were a machine,
but you are under my skin. My precious sick Maria
adores you. She wants to marry you when she grows
up, I don't have the heart to tell her you're a robot so
there must be something very likeable about you,
Chase.”
“I’m not a machine. I too am a cybernetic synthetic
organism. I’ve been kept asleep and manipulated like
a machine for reasons that were not known to me
before. Now I’ve been awakened. Juan, are you sure
you’re not the one walking around in waking dreams,
asleep, unable to perceive reality. How do you know
you’re not? I didn’t know I was grown in a test tube,
have no family, and was ‘a creation,’ but how do you
humans know that you aren't all someone’s
experiment. My dream was that I really thought you
were my partner in the NYPD; that I was a Jew from
Long Island, had parents, and was normal except for
having headaches and then one day I awakened as
though from a deep dream. Don’t judge me!”
“Wow, Chase, what memory chip was that stored
on?” Juan says sarcastically.
“We don’t have chips. We have brains just like you,
except we have two of them,” Ally jumps in.
You know Juan you have a picture, an image of
yourself just like we did. I thought my life was real;
how do you know yours is? Chase probes.
"Because I don't drink that Dr. Boner’s crap, I know!
And I have a very sick child," Juan says loudly.
"But how do you really know? Ally says coldly.
"I just know!" Juan exclaims.
Chase says, "You humans all live in a dream; and I
know, because I’ve lived in a dream and I recognize
and know what that experience is, and you don't. All
of your thoughts and actions are mechanical, even
more mechanical than mine, you have no free will."
Juan sits back in his seat and smiles at both of them,
"You're both very good - good robot!"
They drove to the Washington Hilton, a beautiful
luxury hotel where Juan checked them in. They had
the top floor suite all to themselves.
Sitting on the sofa across from Chase and Ally, Juan
says, “You know there is only one bedroom in this
suite, or don’t you guys sleep; are you even male and
female, is that possible?”
“Are you jealous of us Juan?” Ally says coquettishly.
“No! Well, maybe a little,” Juan retorts.
“So what are your questions? We’re both tired, and
we do sleep, and personally I want to take both a
shower and a nap,” Chase says.
“Aren’t you afraid you’re going to short out, in the
water I mean?” Juan laughs at his own comments.
“Are you trying to be funny or obnoxious?” Ally
asks.
“Alright, who is charge of EOJ?”
“Congressman Charles Dean,” Chase answers.
“Who gives you your objectives?” Juan asks.
Ally answers, “We don’t know. Programs are placed
into our memory plasma including a unique
individual identity for that assignment. We were
always kept in a state of ‘waking sleep’ unless we
were malfunctioning or needed a specific kind of selfidentity or long term public life was required for
meeting the objective.”
“We would like both of you to work for us, the FBI,”
Juan said.
“We are always under threat of being re-programmed
by EOJ; at this moment for some reason we are able
to resist their directives, but we don’t even know how
we’re doing it. That’s all we know, they could even
be watching this meeting we’re having right now,”
Chase says.
“Sam said you were different, he said that Beneizen
had given you a new programming in an entirely
different language. He said their computers continued
to talk to you, but could no longer force you into
obedience.”
“Maybe that’s true, but it’s possible they could have
solved the new programming language or could do so
at any time. We truly don’t know,” Chase tells Juan.
“Sam said the new programming language would be
impossible for them to crack,” Juan says. “He told
me it was in a language nearly a million years old and
comes from a planet a hundred million light years
away, I would think that would be safe.”
“Nothing is impossible, maybe it’s not likely, but
Juan, you have a much bigger and more immediate
problem. EOJ has a plan to reduce world population
and as a test they plan on killing a million people in
New York City,” Chase says.
“They plan on what?” Juan is startled.
“They plan to kill huge numbers of people to
conserve world resources. There are other countries in
agreement with that directive. You probably know
that President Grant is a Guard and who knows how
many other world leaders may also be Guards? We
might be able to help you by hacking into the EOJ
computer and finding out their specific plans and
objectives.”
Juan is stunned, speechless. After a moment he asks,
“Why would you help us, what is your motivation?”
“There is a very deep programming in us - call it a
more objective morality. What if you could raise the
conscience of all mankind, to change how everyone
behaves towards each other and the planet itself?
They killed Sam and what they’re planning is as
abhorrent to us as it is to you. Our natural
programming is towards inner balance. We’re not just
machines Juan, we’re something quite different, and
we have consciences,” Chase explains.
“What does that mean?” Juan asks.
“Beneizen’s original intention for us was to be
objective judges with both the understanding and the
power to solve world disputes. Originally EOJ was
meant to be about world balance, world justice, the
arising of conscience for all mankind. What is good
for the planet is good for all of us. Our original
programming is to discover that sense of balance that
is deep within your human DNA. Beneizen and Sam
just magnified it. You see there is a higher
intelligence and universal order far beyond our
conscious understanding. There is a binding energy
that is so fine that it unites everything in the cosmos.
You see Juan; we have a human brain, and slowly
that brain and its sense of balance can, if understood
and manifested properly, harmonize our mechanical
parts.”
“Oh, well that’s clear, a philosophical robot; who
would have guessed?” Juan snaps. “I need to know
more about this Manhattan project of EOJ.”
“We must rest now and recharge,” Ally snaps.
Juan looks at both Chase and Ally and says, “What
are you two going to do, plug into the wall?”
“No, when we are relaxed we can find our creator,
and he will recharge us.” she replies
“Who is your creator?”
“That is our question, if you leave us alone, we’ll
come back rested and serve you well,” Ally answers.
Juan gets up from the sofa and goes to the door and
says, “I’ll see you two in the morning. Get a good
night’s sleep or whatever you do.”
Chase and Ally don’t say anything as they watch Juan
go out of the room, then they smile in unison like
Cheshire cats.
Finally, Ally says, “I don’t trust him.”
“I don’t trust anyone,” Chase says.
Juan leaves and goes into the room next door where
the two other FBI agents have been sitting, watching
the monitor showing the action next door, and says,
“They are not to leave their room, understand?”