David Gatewood: The Robot Chronicles

No one would understand why Micah would want to give him skin. Maybe to make him feel more comfortable.

Micah shrugged. “I’m happy here.”

McCray also shrugged. “Well, it might not matter soon anyway.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, I’m not one to gossip.” He glanced around the trailer. Skip didn’t pay him any attention and Kitpie had whirred itself into its favorite corner. “You look like a decent, hard-working man. Despite our Kawasaki Frequency, the Complex has been picking up some odd emanations from around here.”

“Emanations?”

“Emanations. ‘Signatures’ is more appropriate. Odd frequency signatures.”

Micah’s face drained of color. “Androids?”

“That’s why I came out here. I need to make sure our sensors aren’t malfunctioning, to see if our broadcasts are working. But the signatures were so vague, plus they’ve already stopped. I’m not getting any more info than what we’ve already detected in Texas.”

Androids had been an accident. Sort of. Moscow University’s Robotics Division had made the first breakthrough in artificial cognition. They gave the program a name— Nikolaevna —and a simple purpose: to anticipate (through variable environmental inputs) and respond to human interaction.

They gave Nikolaevna intelligence, but they didn’t give her a heart.

What those university students underestimated was the rate of Nikolaevna’s rapid cognitive development. She’d quickly realized the inconsistent nature of man and reacted. Or so they speculated.

She corrupted the university computer systems, planting viruses throughout the science, mechanical engineering, and robotics divisions. Those systems interfaced with local and regional industrial and power production networks.

In a matter of hours, Nikolaevna had locked the entire university and killed the air.

In another week she’d released her first manufactured machine: an android imagined after man, to kill man.

Micah sat at his table and rubbed the intricate gilded edge of Margaret’s fine China teacup. For months he’d saved his credits to buy her the delicate set.

“The Battle of Tallahassee,” he said, remembering. “I saw footage. All the bodies, all the buzzards, circling and landing.” He took a deep breath to slow his quickened pulse.

McCray nodded his chubby head. “Keep what I told you quiet. Let’s hope and pray that we’re wrong and it’s not androids. But in my opinion, I don’t think we’re wrong.” He wiped his sweaty neck with the saturated towel, and held up the box. “I dropped it from my hotel window, about ten feet. Stupid tech. You wouldn’t believe how expensive this is. If I was back home I’d just get another from supply.” He shook it and something inside clattered. “I took it to Paulie on the east side. You know Paulie’s Repair?”

Micah nodded.

“But he couldn’t fix it,” McCray said.

Of course Paulie couldn’t fix it. For a fixer, Paulie had large, clumsy hands, and a large, clumsy mind. He could buy every instructional media stream on technology repair there was, and he would still struggle. He had no intuition for fixing.

Micah took the box and wiped it on his pants to get rid of the sweat coating. He turned away from McCray and closed his eyes, spinning the delicate object.

He pulled his multi-tool from its sheath.

McCray said something, but it didn’t matter. Micah found the barely discernible device seam and went to work.

The box separated into three pieces, revealing micro-circuitry sheets. A mere speck of dust could destroy such delicate machinery. No wonder it didn’t work after McCray’s sweaty, clumsy hands dropped it.

From the outset, the Machine Wars had gone badly. Early on, Nikolaevna’s androids attempted to infiltrate nuclear arsenals around the world. Her children attempted to overpower the sites while she attempted to hack into the systems. Governments had no choice but to destroy the missiles that sat in the silos.

Nikolaevna didn’t get the nukes, but she did invent a magnetic repulsion force field able to deflect bullets and missiles.

Micah sat his hot pen on the table and closed the box. He pressed a combination of buttons on the polished black surface and it came to life, resurrected from the dead.

McCray clapped his hands. “It works! How did you do that so quickly? I was told it was a throwaway; not fixable.”

Micah handed the transmitter back to him. Skip handed Micah a dish rag and he wiped his hands on it instead of his pants. “A secret. I can’t tell, or everyone would be able to do it.”

He couldn’t tell even if he wanted to. Many nights he didn’t sleep, staring at his hands, wondering about it. What made him special? Was he some kind of angel, sent by God for some unknown purpose?

McCray spun the working transmitter in his hand, mesmerized. He glanced at his watch again. “I’ve gotta finish up then get to the airport.” He started for the door. “You can understand why I have to get back to Texas.” He stopped as he reached for the knob. “Oh yeah, how much do I owe you?”

But Micah was lost, lost in the thought of an impending war.

“Hello? Micah? Well, here’s a card.” McCray pulled one from his pocket and handed it to Skip. “It should have at least three thousand credits, maybe more. Let me know if you ever want a job. Here’s my contact card.” He handed another card to Skip then slapped the bot on the back. “Be sure to keep an eye on this thing. Someone may think he’s an android trying to cause problems.”

McCray opened the door and gasped as the noonday sun took his breath away. He wiped his head again then waved his towel as a sign of farewell.

Skip closed the door behind him and turned to Micah. “Sir, what did he mean I would try to cause problems?”

Micah waved his hand, dismissing the childlike question. “We have to do something, Skip. We have to do something.”

“If the signatures are detectable, that means the Kawasaki Frequency doesn’t work anymore,” Micah said.

Fusao Kawasaki, a day laborer who dabbled in home stereos, had sought to find a way to infiltrate the force fields Nikolaevna had constructed to surround Moscow University and all of her machines. Kawasaki studied the fields and, after two months of testing, mapped a range of frequencies that, when modulated in a particular series, created a disruptive resonance. He postulated that this resonance would affect Nikolaevna’s field.

The military was willing to entertain anything.

Two years after Nikolaevna became aware, a multi-national force—the United States, Canada, and others—programmed a hastily fashioned modulator to broadcast the Kawasaki Frequency. They tested it on one of Nikolaevna’s outposts that had been established in London after Britain fell.

It worked.

The frequency not only disrupted the force field, it also momentarily disrupted communication between androids, vehicles, and Nikolaevna. It didn’t last long, but long enough for military forces to strike against a disoriented enemy.

They broke plenty of Nikolaevna’s toys.

“Remember Skynet,” Micah said, pointing to his dirty VCR. He knew Skip could relate to that. “Remember the wars. It can happen again. We have to do something.”

He bit his lip, still staring at the VCR. “Wait. Wait.” He ran to an old corkboard nailed to his wall and ripped off a folded newspaper cutout. “Remember a year ago?”

Skip had finished dusting and now examined the teacups drying on the counter. He shifted the set so that the handles faced in the same direction. “Are you referring to Machine X? What do you want with that, sir?”

Micah held the paper close to his eyes. “Nikolaevna’s last intact ship. Well, mostly intact, anyway. Remember last year they moved it here?” He tapped the dirty paper. “They squirreled it away at Wright-Pat while they tried to access the technology, but they determined it was dead. Completely dead. So they decided to scrap it. Sent it here. Well, I’m going to use it.”