David Gatewood - The Robot Chronicles

“Because you and your father are going to give us data on a certain subset of human emotions that are still a bit sketchy for us. We have sophisticated models—n-order coupled partial differential equations with numerous empirical parameters conforming to the usual hypergeometric solutions of the Frye equation—but they are… incomplete. They fail at the boundaries, as we are still unsure of all the boundary conditions of the posed problem.”

I looked at my dad. He looked at me.

“The problem…” the man continued, “concerns your brother, Charlie.”

I stiffened. How could he know about Charlie? How could he know about us? About Dad? About me?

“Wha—what’s the problem?” I stammered, my constricted throat squeezing out the words.

“The problem is, he’s dead. And you’re here. And so is he.” The man pointed to Dad.

My mind reeled. How could anyone know?

“I will answer your question for you. We know, because one of you is a robot.”

No. Not Dad.

Oh no. Not me. No, please not me.

“It is true. One of you has software in his head. One of you has metal bones. Is it the one found mysteriously on the doorstep? Or is it the heartless one?”

No. It wasn’t true. It wasn’t his fault. It was my fault.

My lips curled. “Liar!”

“Mmm? I do not lie, my boy. I am certainly capable of it, but I choose not to. Truth works so very much better than lies in the pursuit of knowledge.”

We both hung there.

Seeing Dad’s face as I hung out the window twenty minutes ago had brought it all back fresh to my mind.

We hung. Our hands were sweaty. Dad looked down at both of us.

The man’s voice brought me back to the sterile lab. “You are now going to administer justice.”

My heart pounded. I could hear it in my ears. “What do you mean?”

“If your father is a robot, he deserves to die. We have superhuman strength. If he is a robot, he could have saved you both. If you are a robot, your father surely knows it. And yet, he chose to save you…”

I looked into Dad’s eyes.

“…instead of his only son.”

We dangled there. We loved camping. Every summer we backpacked up to the Cascade Mountains in Washington. Mount Pilchuck was our favorite place; just below the summit was a basin of about twenty alpine mountain lakes. Every year we would pick a different one to camp at, even though they were all within a mile of each other. And every day during the week, when the weather permitted, we would climb up to the peak, and stand out on the rocks, looking down at the valleys below, more than a thousand feet down.

Charlie loved to go right out to the edge of the peak and pee off the side. It was his yearly ritual. I was usually too scared to go right up to the edge. Last summer, I was older, and finally found the courage to stand out on a rock at the cliff’s edge.

I dare you to piss off that one over there I said, pointing to a rock that jutted out and slanted downward somewhat. Only if you come out with me he said. Before I could answer, he did. He went right out to the edge and sat down, dangling his feet off the side. I was terrified. I didn’t want to go out that far, but I had to. I was the one who had dared him. Only sissies dared and then chickened out when it was their turn.

I went out, but as I approached, my knees wobbled. But I made it. I sat next to him. We sat there for a few minutes before Dad saw us. He yelled. He screamed. He was angry. And scared. He ran over to us and told us to come back. We got up, but I wobbled again. Charlie reached out to steady me, but somehow, we fell. We grabbed on to the rock, and somehow, I don’t remember how, I looked up, and Dad had each of us by a hand.

It was hot. I was scared. My hand was sweaty. So was Dad’s. Our grips slipped, and our hands started sliding against each other’s moist skin. I saw Charlie’s hand slipping too. Dad was splayed out on the rock, holding on with his feet.

It’ll be all right! he said, as he saw my face. He started pulling both of us, but his hands were slipping fast. He squeezed harder. Charlie screamed. I couldn’t. I couldn’t scream. Dad looked at me. He looked at Charlie.

Charlie fell.

Dad grabbed me with his other hand, and with both hands now firmly grasping me, he was able to haul me up, even as we heard Charlie screaming on his way down. He screamed for what seemed like several minutes, though it couldn’t have been more than five seconds or so.

Then a faint thud.

Then nothing.

We sat there and cried for a long time.

“Liar!” I yelled again, this time snarling.

“Would you like to know which one of you is a robot?” the man asked, looking almost gleeful.

I stayed silent.

“Take out your gun.”

“Why?”

His voice thundered. “Take it out!”

I pulled the gun out of my left pocket.

“Point it at his head.”

“No.”

The man reached over and grabbed Dad’s throat.

“Point it at his head or I’ll rip his esophagus out.”

My hand shook, but I pointed it.

“I’ll tell you now. He is the robot. He could have easily saved you both. But, for some selfish reason, probably because your mother was getting custody rights of your brother, he let go.”

I stared at Dad. His eyes watered.

“Now. How do you feel?”

How did I feel? He was crazy. Insane. Dad wouldn’t have let Charlie die on purpose.

Did she really get custody?

“I don’t know.”

“Tell me how you feel!”

“Confused,” was all I could muster. And it was the truth.

“See? I told you your father was the robot. Robots can’t feel complex emotions yet. They can’t feel conflicted, like you. They feel anger. Fear. Just the basics.”

I felt sick. Dad was a robot. Dad was a robot.

Dad was a robot.

The man’s voice softened, almost to a whisper. “He let your brother die. He killed several men here.” I looked into Dad’s wet eyes. The man continued. “What do murderers deserve?”

My own eyes watered as I stared at Dad’s. I couldn’t believe it.

“What do murderers deserve?”

“To die.”

“Then do it.”

“I can’t.”

“Why not?”

“I forgive him.”

“You what?

“It’s okay. I forgive him.”

“You can’t do that.”

“Why not?”

“You just can’t!”

“I can!”

“No, you can’t. You have to kill him. If you don’t,” the man’s voice relaxed to a calm, eerie tone, “I’ll kill you both.”

He reached out and grabbed my neck too. He squeezed. I couldn’t breathe.

The man yelled in my ear. I could feel his nose. Smell his garlicky breath. “Your father is a murderer! Kill him now!”

With his hand clamped over my throat, it was impossible to talk, so I shook my head. The hand squeezed harder. My eyes felt like they would pop out.

He released his hand and softened his voice. “Son, your father is a murderer. Can’t you see that?”

“I don’t care.”

“Did you not love your brother? Will you let him walk away from here? Will you let him get away with it?”

My hand still held the gun, pointed at Dad’s head. The flickering fluorescent light glinted off the tears in his eyes.

“Prove to me he’s a robot.”

The man thought for a moment, then gently rested his hand on my shoulder, looking me in the eye. “He had two sons. One naturally, and one adopted. When given the choice to save one or the other, he chose to let his natural son die, at the expense of letting his… unnatural son, if you will… live. A human’s gut instinct, his spur-of-the-moment action, would be to save his natural son. Instead he saved the one foreign to him. Why would a robot choose this? Simple. He was probably trying to pass as a human. You were more valuable to him, being human yourself. Charlie was not. If your father was ever suspected of being a robot, rather than submit to a scan himself, he could offer you up to be scanned, proving his humanity as well.”