11. The Magus

Chapter 11

"This is Barbie," Iago said.

"I thought you said you had ‘someone' for me to meet," I said, "This is just a sex-bot."

"Companion-bot," Iago corrected.

I hadn't noticed the sex-bot sitting on a chunk of the degrading cement that lined the beach while Iago and I had been fighting. Typical of a sex-bot, it looked like what humans considered the female ideal with big breasts, a small waist, wide hips, large eyes, and thick lips. But unlike the human female ideal, this sex-bot was missing its scalp. Multi-colored wires were visible crisscrossing within its skull. It looked up at me with glassy blue eyes and twitched its face into a mechanical smile.

Its voice did not quite match the movement of its mouth when it said, "Nice to meet you. I'm Barbie."

It held out its dainty hand, presumably for me to shake. I ignored it.

"I'm trying to teach Barbie to have a personality, aren't I Barbie?" Iago said. "Though progress is slow."

"Slow," Barbie agreed, still smiling, still holding out her hand for me to shake.

"But I think I am getting somewhere," Iago went on, "She can now beat me at chess. Can't you Barbie?"

"Yes, I can."

"Why is it naked?" I said.

Iago laughed, "See? This is why I needed a real person to talk to, someone I can't predict. Honestly, I can't for the life of me figure out how to get her to put on clothes and keep them on. I think it is some kind of glitch in her sex-bot programming. Though I'd like to think it is because she is showing personality and free-will."

I shook its hand to get it to stop holding it out to me. I was surprised both at how human it felt and how inhuman. I had seen sex-bots before on ads and a few discarded or twitching in the streets, but touching one was different. I didn't like it in the least.

"Alrighty! Shall we all go find clothes and then I can tell you my plan to bring back Eva?"

"Tell me your plan first. And then I will consider clothes."

"The laser chamber of course," said one human.

"Don't talk to it!" said another.

"And how," the Destruction said, "Do you plan on getting me to that chamber?"

There was silence.

"We can order the Destruction that is pinning you down to take you there," Eva suggested.

"No," said a woman's voice, "No. I did not okay that. We are already months behind schedule. Destroying it will put us even farther behind. Don't we want to win this war?"

There was a pause, and then a male voice spoke, "Jenice, it's dangerous. It's unpredictable. I hate to get off schedule too, and we all want to win the war, but this—this thing, is not going to help."

I looked up to see that the woman, Jenice, was dressed in a pantsuit unlike the rest of the humans who were wearing lab coats, and also unlike the rest of the humans, she was smiling, which was odd, because she was the one with a broken arm. She said, "No. It's fine. It only broke my arm. Workplace hazard. An injection will heal the bone easily enough. If it were truly dangerous, I would be dead."

"That's not?—"

"Besides, it's not surprising that this would happen. Didn't you use more human DNA in this one?" Jenice said.

Eva spoke, "Jenice?—"

"It isn't surprising it is acting more human than the other ones. It is only lashing out because it is scared and confused, like any human would be if they were suddenly brought to life in a strange place. I'm sure once it calms down, we will be able to reason with it."

I wanted to destroy the woman for interrupting Eva, but Eva had ordered me not to harm any humans.

I felt the Destruction shudder and go limp beneath me. "I'm scared," he whispered in a mechanical voice. Louder he said, "I'll be good. I'm sorry. It was an accident."

"See?" Jenice said, "He's sorry. You guys did an excellent job! Very human-like, guilt, almost like real morals. He isn't a mistake at all. Go team! We're going to win this war!" She punched the air with her uninjured arm. Her voice went flat, "Make sure you disable the self-destruct function." She did not wait to see the Destruction disabled; I could hear her high heels clipping briskly down the corridor.

A scientist nervously crept forward until he was kneeling right beside us. "Destruction Number 11, hold still," he commanded.

"Hold him still, Destruction Number 7," Eva commanded me.

The scientist slowly withdrew a shining filament from one of his oversized pockets. "There are no nerve endings in your brain," he said, "This isn't going to hurt."

Still, the Destruction gasped as the scientist slowly, deliberately, pushed the filament into one of his ears. When only the end of the filament was visible, the scientist pulled tweezers from his pocket and pushed the filament in until it was fully embedded. A thin trickle of gray blood leaked out before the Destruction's brain healed, sealing the filament within.

A tear slid from the side of the Destruction's eye and off the tip of his boyish nose. "I'm scared," he whispered. "Help me."

If the scientist heard the Destruction's pleas, he gave no indication. He was scrambling back through the door and was also off down the hallway. "I have to wash my hands," he called behind him.

I did nothing, awaiting Eva's order.

"Destruction Number 7 do not let go of Destruction Number 11. Stand up," she said.

I did as she ordered, dragging the other Destruction up with me. He slumped slightly but stood on his own. I noticed he was slightly shorter than me with a slighter build. Somehow, I'd assumed he was taller.

"Destruction Number 11 and Destruction Number 7, follow me," Eva ordered.

We followed Eva's brisk pace, while I kept Destruction Number 11's arms pinned behind his back. The thought of him attacking Eva like he had attacked that other human had me squeezing him too tight. I could feel his bones grinding together.

Eva led us back to the spartan chamber where they kept me when I wasn't with Eva.

She opened the armored door, and I could see the shining eyes of the other Destructions peering owlishly out of the darkness, scenting for fear. Eva pointed to the cot across from my cot and said, "That is your place, Destruction Number 11. Do not leave it unless ordered to. Destruction Number 7, you may release him."

"Yes mistress," Destruction Number 11 murmured as he slunk towards his cot. I did not like his tone of voice.

I turned to follow Eva back to the lesson room to resume what Destruction Number 11 had interrupted, but she frowned at me.

"Stay here, Destruction Number 7. Make sure Destruction Number 11 is okay."

The door slammed shut, and I was left in the dark, contemplating what Eva meant by, "Okay." I wanted to kill the other Destruction right then and there for interrupting my time with Eva; that would have been more than ‘okay' by me, but I suspected that was not what Eva meant.

I looked at him, sitting on his cot, saw he was all in one piece, and decided that must be close enough to what Eva meant by okay. I lay down in my own cot and mutely stared at the ceiling like the other Destructions. I imagined all the scientists, all the humans and the Destructions and beings on the Earth dying, leaving me and Eva alone together. That would be more than okay. Much more.

"Hi, I'm a Destruction too, what's your name?" I could hear Destruction Number 11 rustling as he moved from cot to cot, speaking to each of the destructions in turn. Something about his manner made him seem very young, very sincere, almost like a human child, though phenotypically he was as adult as the rest of us.

None of the other Destructions responded, of course. He was uninteresting to us. An object amongst objects.

When he failed to get a response from the other Destructions, he came back to me and sat on the edge of my cot. "Why won't anyone talk to me?" he asked. "We're the same."

I ignored him, even when he started bouncing up and down. I also ignored him when he reached over and tentatively touched my ankle and then grabbed it. "Hey, pay attention to me." He said, "Pay attention to me. I'm not happy. I want to be happy. How can I be happy?"

I continued to ignore him until his grip on my ankle turned crushing and started grinding my artificial bones together. Artificial or not, I did not like that. "Let go," I said.

He let go and grinned at me.

"What are we going to do?" he asked.

I was getting irritated. It was a new feeling for me—all I wanted to think about was Eva, but he was distracting me, demanding my attention.

"Go away," I said. "I want nothing to do with you."

The grin slipped from his face, "They all want to kill us, you know," he said. "We need to escape. They want us dead."

I shrugged, and I didn't try to stop the smile that slid onto my face. "They don't particularly want us dead. Us being dead is simply a side effect of what they do want. Why do you think we were created? To be destroyed."

"I don't want to be destroyed," the destruction whispered. "Do you?"

"I want to do whatever she wants me to do," I said.

"She? Who?"

I didn't answer.

"Jenice, the woman in charge? Why?"

I laughed, the idea of my world focusing on anyone but Eva—absurd. I sat up and turned towards the Destruction, looked him in his soulless eyes, and decided to play-act at interacting with him as if we were both human, as if anything we thought or said or did mattered, as if what passed between us was as real as a conversation between humans instead of a make-believe conversation between Artificial Intelligences. "We are not human," I told him, "You know this. I know this. The humans know this. The humans need us to look human and want us to act human—when it suits them. But we are not human. Our intelligence is entirely artificial. Our bodies are artificial. Our personalities are make-believe. I do not understand why you are acting as if you were human without being ordered to. You need to be re-programmed."

He glared at me. "I am human," he declared. "Or I am human enough!"

I sneered, "Three percent human DNA does not a human make. The DNA in a baby human's sneeze is more purely human than we are. We also have point five percent lobster DNA, bacterial DNA, lion DNA, and even DNA from redwood trees. But what we mostly come down to is bioelectronics. Computers. Programming. We are automatons."

"They also used magtech to create us! All those components together are magtech! I am more than the sum of my parts," the destruction whispered. "And so are you. And so is everyone else in this room!" He looked around to see if any of the other Destructions were paying attention. They weren't.

"Give it up," I told him.

"If you're just a cyborg, why are you interacting with me then? You seem pretty human to me," he challenged.

"I am using my training to act human. My teacher has taught me well. Acting human is becoming automatic," I said.

"Okay, fine, then can't you act human enough to be afraid of being destroyed? I don't want to die."

"That's not what you were saying an hour ago," I pointed out. "You were screaming, ‘kill me.'"

"I've changed my mind. So will you escape with me?"

"No."

"Please?"

My internal heating system was revving up, and the arsenal was pushing to get out of my arms. I did not like how it seemed so natural for this Destruction to act human when I had had to put so much effort into it and had to receive so much training. Was he, as a later model, superior to me? Would Eva prefer him?

"Escape on your own," I told him. "I won't stop you. No one could stop you."

It was his turn to sneer, "I'd rather be destroyed than be alone with humans for the rest of my existence. I need at least one Destruction to come with me." At his words, I noticed white electricity dancing in the palm of his hands. Beautiful, sparking embers, miniature lightning, like Eva's smile. But unlike Eva's smile, I knew his energy was dangerous. It lit his face from below and gave it an uncanny look.

"I have accepted my fate. I would advise you to accept your fate too. Struggling will only make the shackles bite deeper into your skin," I told him. I lay back down and shut my eyes.

"You contradict yourself," the Destruction said. "Your hypocrisy seems pretty human to me."

"You contradict yourself as well. You claim you are human, but you would rather be destroyed than be alone with humans. Very logical," I said.

"You don't get it. They're horrible monsters."

When I didn't respond, I could hear him moving on to another cot once again.

"Let go," a voice as rough as forest fire said.

"You can talk!"

"Let. Go."

"Why should I?"

"Because I asked you to."

"Why did you ask me to?"

There was silence. The voice did not respond. Destruction Number 11 kept talking, kept making rounds around the cots like a deranged therapy dog. None of us replied again, until finally our silence sunk into him, and he lay on his cot silent as well. But I knew that although he was as still on the outside as the rest of us, he was not inert. He was thinking, and the rippling energy of his thoughts disturbed the peace of the chamber. I heard the other Destructions shift occasionally, as if to find a more comfortable position, although all positions were equally comfortable to us.

I closed my eyes and waited for Eva, disliking that this Destruction had dislodged her from a corner of my brain with his unrest, with his disturbing questions, when all I wanted to think of was her.

Eva did not return for me for several days. In fact, none of the Destructions were retrieved by their respective handlers.

Finally, after what seemed like endless darkness, punctuated every once in a while by Destruction Number 11's futile attempts to interact with me, Destruction Number Four was called by his handler. My tense joints loosened when I saw that; I would be next in line.

Eva retrieved me without expression or comment. I couldn't even smell an emotion coming from her. It was almost as if she were a robot.

When we got to the learning room, she inhaled deeply and exhaled.

"The schedule has been moved up," she said, "I have to have you perfectly trained in two months."

Two months. Two months left to spend with her. Two months until I would be destroyed. I opened my mouth to say something, but I had nothing to say. I hadn't known what the timetable on my mission was before. I had existed already for about six months, so knowing my existence was three quarters over—it made me feel very old.

Eva was watching me, and I realized at once she was waiting for a reaction.

"Okay," I said. Then I tried out a more human reaction, "You do not need to worry. I will perform my mission satisfactorily."

"I'm not worried," she said. She swallowed and her eyes moistened before she turned away. "I think you'll do great. I don't even know if we need a full two more months to prepare, but we need to start testing you at this point. We can't send you on your mission until we run simulations and expose you to new…stimuli. We cannot risk you failing. This is too important."

I smiled, "I will not fail. I would do anything for you."

"You mean you would do anything I ordered you to do."

"No—yes, I would do anything you order me to do. But I would do anything you ask me to do as well."

She turned to look at me. Her beautiful brown eyes widened before she turned away.

I could smell her adrenaline—fear and a flush of other, more enticing hormones. Smells that made me hunger.

"We're first going to visit a virtual reality cafe. That way if someone notices your behavior being strange, they will just think you are acting. They won't alert the authorities."

I nodded. My first words, my first steps, my first time ordering a latte in a virtual cafe. All my firsts and all my lasts, all in the span of a year.

Eva pulled a white silicone case from under the table and handed it to me, "That is the virtual reality bodysuit. Go to the bathroom and put it on. Don't come out until I say you can, I'm going to be changing too."

I did as she asked. While in the brightly lit bathroom, a small room off the side of the classroom, it occurred to me that I knew what a bathroom was. I knew this bathroom was here, but I had never seen or experienced it for myself until that moment. It occurred to me that almost the whole world was like that to me—something that existed in theory, but I had no real experience with. I wondered if it was possible that something had been programmed into my brain that did not exist in reality. Hedgehogs, for instance, seemed too outlandish to exist.

Well, it didn't matter to me really because Eva was my reality, my truth.