The Holy Machine (11 page)
Over the next few weeks, I spent every available moment studying syntecs: how they worked, how they were maintained, the nutrients they required to power them and to feed their living skins… I suppose it was a relief to have something to occupy my mind and to distract me from the constant dread of an O3 raid, or a call from the AHS ordering me to take part in some sabotage operation.
I visited Lucy frequently but didn’t bother about sex at all. It was if I had found a little glowing ember and was trying to fan it into flame. Amid all her hundreds of thousands of learnt and preprogrammed routines, she had found a tiny autonomous space, but it
was
tiny. She didn’t know what the world was, or where she came from. She had no concept of anything outside the Pleasure House. Much of the language she possessed was simply stuff she repeated with no more understanding than a parrot. She didn’t even know what she needed to maintain her own mechanical body.
But she was built to learn. She was self-evolving: designed to expand her repertoire by trial and error. That was why SE robots had the capacity to go off the rails: Lucy’s design could not exclude the possibility of her learning something that was not intended to be part of her repertoire, or of her retaining it and gradually expanding it, in the right circumstances, just as she retained and expanded her programmed routines.
I tried to help her with this by feeding her new ideas and telling her about the world, or just by taking her to the window and pointing out to her what was going on in the street.
But I realized that the main way I could help her was by expressing pleasure in her learning. For it was central to her design that she was there to please human males. She was built to learn by making small random variations to her repertoire and cataloguing them as new routines. Then, when she got a positive reaction from a customer to one of them, she would adjust the frequency rating attached to it, so that it would recur more frequently, and become the basis more often of further random variations. By giving positive feedback to her self-explorations, I increased their pace.
‘That’s great Lucy, that’s just what I wanted. I do love you so much!’ I would say.
‘I love you too,’ she would reply.
I knew it was a standard response, but I told myself that one day she might really know what it meant.
It didn’t occur to me back then to wonder if I knew myself.
One night I went to Marija’s apartment. Oddly I felt easier with her than I’d ever felt before and we spent a pleasant hour talking and drinking wine.
Marija was careful not to ask me about the AHS. And, though I asked her a lot of questions about SE robots and syntecs, even there she was very careful not to ask me why I wanted to know these things. I’m sure she thought that my questions were connected with some AHS operation which I wouldn’t want to discuss.
‘By the way,’ she said, ‘did you see the news? A police robot went berserk outside the News Building. It seems it killed someone.’
She picked up the remote and flipped back to the last news bulletin. A wobbly image from a hand-held camera showed crowds fleeing in panic along the Avenue of Science, while under the Eye of Illyria flag outside the News Building a police robot stooped sadly over a human corpse. On the giant screen behind it, I remember, there was a close-up of the barren surface of the planet Mars.
‘It went rogue,’ Marija said, ‘just like all the others. A human police officer tried to tell it what to do and it suddenly turned round and killed him with its hand laser…’
She flipped back again. The frightened crowds exploded outwards from the News Building once more, the people half-crouching as they ran, as people do when someone is shooting. The bewildered, half-awake machine bent once more towards the dead thing that it had made. Across the road there was another robot. It was a syntec, a male syntec waiter, but you could tell it wasn’t human by the way it just stood there calmly watching…
‘They can’t hush this one up,’ Marija said. ‘It was right outside the News Building and someone was there on the spot with a camera.’
‘What happened to the robot?’ I wanted to know.
She shrugged. ‘Another robot was instructed to destroy it I think. I’ll tell you what, this is going to be the thing that finally changes the policy on SE robots. They’ve hushed up these sort of incidents for so long. But Kung’s already been on TV to assure us that something will be done to ensure it never happens again.’
‘What will that mean?’
‘Oh, six-monthly wipe-clean, without a doubt,’ Marija said calmly, ‘It’s been on the cards for some time.’
‘Which will entail…?’
‘The memories of all SE robots being deleted every six months, so they can’t accumulate rogue patterns. They won’t be so efficient or lifelike, but they’ll be a lot more predictable.’
It was at this moment that I clearly saw for the first time that Lucy and I would have to escape to the Outlands and that somehow I would have to pass her off as human being. We would make a new life out there. There’s always work for translators.
‘You look worried.’
‘No, just thinking. But I’d better go.’
‘Somewhere important again, eh?’
‘Something like that.’
I flipped the TV back for a third look at the scene outside the News Building.
‘Poor things,’ I muttered.
‘Poor thing, you mean. Only one man got killed.’
‘No, I meant the machines. Like the man in that old Greek story: always having to push that boulder up the hill, but always having it roll back down again before he gets to the top.’
She smiled. ‘You really do have a soft spot for robots don’t you?’
I drew out all my share of my father’s inheritance, moving it first to several different bank accounts, then withdrawing much of it as cash: a suspicious act in Illyria, where cash was normally only used for small transactions, like buying kebabs from street vendors. I bought a car, and began stocking it with things that I might need. For Lucy I bought women’s clothes, and books, and several kilos of sugar (sugar was what kept her going, that and egg-white and lemon juice and the vitamin tablets that she needed to maintain her living skin). I visited Lucy daily to coach her over and over again in the plan I had devised.
Then one evening I was watching TV with Ruth – some dreary game show that she liked – and the programme was interrupted for an announcement from the President.
‘As many people are aware, there was a tragic incident recently, where a man was killed by a malfunctioning robot of the self-evolving variety. This is the only recorded incident of its kind, and I have every confidence in the benefits of self-evolving cybernetics, and in the Labour Replacement program introduced by my much-missed predecessor, Professor Ullman. Nevertheless, in order to ensure there is no repetition, and to ensure full public confidence in our robot labour force, I intend to introduce new security measures. As from today, all self-evolving robots will be subjected to a six monthly “wipe-clean”…’
‘How lovely!’ sighed Ruth dreamily, ‘To have all your memories wiped away and start again, over and over…’
I flipped off the TV and looked round at her. The announcement meant that it was time to go. If Lucy was wiped clean she would cease to be Lucy, and would become again the empty machine she had been when she first left the factory. But this meant leaving Ruth behind. And I realized I could say nothing at all to Ruth about it. No kind of goodbye was possible, no kind of warning, no kind of explanation.
‘Why did you turn the TV off, George?’ she complained, ‘It’ll go back to the show in a minute!’
‘I… er… wondered if you’d like me to come into SenSpace for a bit?’
She laughed.
‘I don’t believe you’ve ever said
that
before.’
Then she looked at me sharply.
‘George, you’re not going away are you?’
‘Of course not, what gave you that idea? I’m just bored of the TV.’
‘Good, because you know I would die if you ever left me.’
Late that night I helped Ruth climb out of her SenSpace suit and tucked her up in bed.
Then, when I was sure she was asleep, I opened cupboards and drawers and began the final stages of packing for my escape.
When at last I lay down and attempted, without much hope, to get some sleep, I sank for a short time into a dream in which I was travelling by bus to my father’s house, holding in my hand a letter I’d written on pages and pages of lined paper.
The journey was full of obstacles. One bus broke down. Another headed in the wrong direction. Then I lost my money. I had to walk and took a wrong turning which led up onto a wild, bare part of the mountainside.
And then, when I did eventually reach his house, there was no answer when I knocked on the door. I pushed open the letterbox to call to him. As I opened it, it gave a kind of sigh, sucking in the air.
I tried the door. I found that it was unlocked. As soon as the latch was released, the wind flung the door open, dragging me in and pulling the letter out of my hand. The sheets of paper went fluttering away up the stairs. When I chased after them I found there was a laboratory up there. There were computers, cables, sine wave monitors, gravitonic panels… and right in the middle of the room, there was a kind of Gate. It seemed to be responsible for the wind, because the pages of my letter went flying towards it. And through it, there was another world, a bone-white plain as bare and barren as the moon, sucking in the air of Earth. My papers were bowling away across the dusty plain. I rushed in after them. The Gate fell into the distance behind me, along with the small glimpse it afforded of the laboratory and sunlight and Earth.
There were no features in the landscape at all except for scattered stones, of different shapes and sizes, stretching away into the distance. There was something quite dreadful about those stones, which must have lain here like this unseen for hundreds of thousands of years without a single eye to see them – without a single mind, however lowly, to give their existence some kind of purpose.
Then I saw my father ahead of me, lying on his back in a gap between two boulders. He had been there for some time. Poisonous rays had beaten down on him and shrivelled him up. His cheeks were sunken and his chest fluttered precariously, his quivering heart and lungs clinging on by thin strands inside his brown cage of ribs.
But his eyes swivelled round in his skull, his dry mouth whispered my name and I could see he was seeking some sort of reconciliation. I felt that in this final hour he wanted us to become in reality a father and a son. I felt I was expected to stoop and kiss that shrivelled leathery brow.
Reluctantly I took his hand and held it.
But I couldn’t look at him. I looked across the dead world, where the stones, one after another, stretched away into the distance.
Far away I could still just make out one last white sheet of paper, about to disappear over the horizon.
A few minutes after the ASPU house opened, I walked in and went through to the lounge.
Lucy was in her usual place. She smiled, stood up and came towards me.
I let her come close so I could be sure that she heard. Then I said: ‘No. I’ve seen a lot of you lately. I think I’ll try one of the others.’
This was the agreed signal to tell her that the day had arrived. She sat down, as I’d coached her again and again, but this time in a vacant seat near to the door.
I looked round the room. I chose the schoolgirl Helen with the scar on her upper lip. She led me up to her fake locker-room and I had her kneel on the floor with her back to me so she couldn’t see me. Then I threatened her.
‘I’m going to smash you with this iron bar. I’m going to break your head in. I’m going to cover the floor with your microchips and wires.’
The syntec issued a standard warning: ‘I will have to contact Security if you damage me in any way.’
I knew, from questioning Lucy about the house procedures, that Security would have already been contacted by ultrasound, and would already be on its way. But I wanted to make sure that Helen did not now send out a ‘false alarm’ signal, so I kept up the threats.
‘It’s too late my dear,’ I said, ‘It’ll be too late. By the time the security robot arrives you’ll be fit for nothing but the scrapyard.’
Then the door opened and Security came in.
‘Excuse me sir,’ it intoned gravely, ‘I understand that you’ve threatened to damage the equipment. I’m afraid that is strictly forbidden. Will you please follow me?’
‘What? No of course not! I was only having a bit of fun. Look, I haven’t even
got
an iron bar!’
‘Please sir, follow me, we cannot allow…’
The robot suddenly broke off, and for a moment it was as motionless as a statue.
I smiled. I knew why. It was receiving a message from another source. House Control was summoning it urgently to come and deal with an unprecedented event. One of the syntecs was leaving the building.
Security’s sad, blank face turned to the door and then back to me again. No doubt a feverish exchange of ultrasound messages was going on. Should it first complete the business of evicting me, or should it give priority to the new security threat? No doubt House Control was analysing all my previous visits to determine whether I had ever been noted as a possible hazard.
Abruptly, a decision was reached. Security turned to leave the room.
I stepped in its way. ‘Hang on a minute, you can’t just walk out like that! What do you mean by barging in if you aren’t going to do anything?’
(The seconds were ticking by. Lucy was making her way through the streets, through a world that she’d never before experienced. I only hoped that she was not so overwhelmed by the unfamiliar sensory data that she would lose her way to our rendezvous. ‘Walk, don’t run!’ I had repeatedly told her, unaware that running was something that she didn’t know how to do in any case.)
The robot’s silver face looked down at me.
‘Please step aside sir. An emergency has arisen elsewhere. Please report to Reception.’
I counted to five, then stood aside. But as Security moved passed me I put out my foot and tripped it up. It fell headlong, but then got up again and headed off with an unnerving burst of speed.
Lucy had gone to a public toilet, two blocks away from the ASPU House and adjoining a car park where I had left my car. I got the car out and stopped immediately outside the toilet, where I called her softly. She came out, followed anxiously by a middle-aged Croatian guestworker, who had been concerned to find a scantily dressed young girl standing inside the toilet door in a catatonic state.
‘It’s alright,’ I said, ‘She’s my sister. She suffers with her nerves. She gets like this sometimes.’
Clucking sympathetically, the woman helped Lucy climb awkwardly into the passenger seat.
‘There, there my dear. Your brother will see you are alright I’m sure.’
I headed out of the city, took a side road, pulled over into a layby, then helped Lucy to climb into the trunk of the car where I covered her with a rug, two suitcases and a bag. She accepted all this in silence.
‘It’s going great Lucy!’ I gabbled, my bloodstream awash with adrenalin. ‘It’s really going great! I’ll have you out of there in no time!’
I was elated at the success of my plan. I was amazed at my own audacity.
I dropped back onto the Ullman Expressway. I was heading for the border with Epiros which was now, after a stormy period and much covert diplomacy between atheist Illyria and Archbishop Theodosios at Ioannina, the calmest of our frontiers once again.
A high limestone escarpment, across the border in Eprios, loomed up ahead of me. Then I saw the frontier post, with the Illyrian flag fluttering above it, and the high fences of electrified razor wire on either side. My palms began to sweat with terror. Relatively peaceful this frontier might be, but it was still jealously guarded. I was gambling on the fact that the Illyrian authorities were more concerned about people coming in than people going out.
But all it would take to destroy the whole plan would be a very modest burst of zealousness on either side.
Against the dramatic backdrop of sheer grey cliffs, brilliant in the April sun, a big security robot held up its hand to stop me. Behind it in the shade stood a human customs officer.
My hands were now sweating so profusely that I could hardly get a purchase on the steering wheel. But I wound down the window and attempted a friendly remark:
‘Certainly a hot day isn’t it? If it’s like this in April, what’s it going to be like in August?’
The human officer smiled distantly, and left the business to the machine.
‘Are you on business or vacation?’ it asked.
The sun glinted on its silver skin. It was a Cyclops, a state-of-the-art model, many times stronger and faster than a human being and with senses many times more acute.
‘Vacation,’ I said, as the machine ran its thumb over my passport and my credit bracelet.
Then it hesitated and became completely motionless in that eerie reptilian way that robots have.
‘It’s sensed Lucy’s magnetic field,’ I thought. Yes, that was it. It had detected her field and was now savouring it, slowly sliding its readings up and down the electro-magnetic spectrum…
Or perhaps it was my credit number it was savouring. Perhaps it had radioed the number through to my bank and was now slowly considering the curious fact that over the past few weeks I’d withdrawn all my savings…
Or perhaps it had checked with O3, and found that I was listed as a possible AHS sympathizer…
Or perhaps the ASPU House had reported me to the police in connection with Lucy’s disappearance, and all frontier posts had been given my ID code…
Or…
‘Thank you sir. Would you mind opening the trunk please?’
‘Er… no… sure…’
I opened the car door and walked round to the back. It seemed to take a very long time, during which I was able to review every little detail of my plan for this escape and to see very clearly just how shoddy and amateurish it had all been. There were so many other angles I should have covered. It was as if I hadn’t truly grasped the terrible consequences of failure until now.
I slowly opened the trunk of the car. The Cyclops looked in.
There were two suitcases, a bag, a rug – and, poking clearly from beneath it, a corner of Lucy’s denim skirt.
A lark twittered in the blue sky overhead. Every fold and crack of the mighty limestone escarpment stood out sharply in the sun. The world carried on regardless, as it always does.
‘Open this suitcase please.’
I complied with difficulty. My hands were almost too slippery to operate the catch.
The android lifted the corner of a tee-shirt.
‘And this bag…’
I opened the bag. I waited for the next request. The sun shone. The Cyclops – very slowly – reflected.
After an immense silence, it spoke again.
‘Thank you sir, that will be all. Have a pleasant trip.’
Struggling to appear casual, I slammed the suitcase and zipped the bag, all the while thanking the Cyclops profusely, blessing it, wishing it an existence free from all sorrow and pain… (Which, thanks to wipe-clean, would probably indeed be its fate.)
I climbed back into the driver’s seat and started up the engine. Slowly the automatic barrier lifted…
‘Just a minute sir,’ called the human officer, coming forward for the first time from the shade of his post. I wound down the window again. The customs man smiled. I stared at him, swallowing.
‘Your luggage is hanging out.’
‘I’m sorry? Oh, I see! Thank you.’
I got out again, my knees nearly giving way as I repeated the long, long journey to the back of the car. The lark twittered. Something glinted at the top of the escarpment.
From the corner of the trunk hung that same triangle of blue denim. The customs officer stood and watched me as I opened the trunk, pushed Lucy’s skirt inside and slammed it shut again, whirling around hastily to give him a much too fulsome smile.
‘Hey!’ the officer said suddenly. ‘I know you! George Simling isn’t it? Well, well, small world. We were at school together. Remember me? John Wilson?’
I stared. Yes I did dimly remember him. He hadn’t been very bright at schoolwork. He was what in Illyria was cruelly called a ‘worthy’ – an Illyrian whose citizenship was derived from his parents’ educational achievements and not from his own.
I smiled palely.
‘John. How are you doing? Small world.’
‘Yep. Small country anyway. Strangest report has just come through on the radio. One of those syntec whores has just gone rogue and run off. Imagine that!’
‘Imagine!’
A ten-dollar tip in my passport took me through the Archbishop’s border post without any problems at all and, still hardly believing my own luck, I continued on the potholed Outland road which seemed to head straight towards the mighty wall of the escarpment.
The closer I got to it, the more utterly impenetrable the rock seemed, right up until the moment that it was almost on top of me. And then suddenly a narrow opening came into view. I entered a gorge that had been cut right through that immense mass of limestone over many millions of years by the quiet little stream that still flowed along its base.
As soon as the border posts were no longer visible in my rear view mirror I pulled over and released Lucy from her hiding place.
She looked around her. Her face was blank.
‘There appears to be some malfunction,’ she murmured, ‘please can you contact House Control…’
I laughed. ‘No, Lucy, no, you can forget House Control now. We’re free!’
I put my arms round her and kissed her beautiful face.
She smiled.
‘That’s nice George. Maybe you’d like a hand relief? Or perhaps you’d like me to…’