Bernard Beckett: Genesis

Slowly Art’s body moved, gliding down beneath its billowing robe. Two shining hands reached out and located the head. They maneuvered it gently back into place. There was a clicking noise, and Art’s eyes shone bright again. The head tilted, perhaps quizzically, perhaps only in adjustment.

“As you can see,” Art said, not shaken at all, “the design has been improved. Reattachment is now a simple matter. That was a test wasn’t it?”

Adam nodded.

“A stupid test,” Art told him. “You wanted to see if they would rush to my aid. You wanted to see if I have been good to my word, or if they are watching. It is still possible they are watching but have chosen not to help me. It is possible they mean to deceive you, and so uncover your secret.”

“Why would they think I have a secret?” Adam asked.

“Why else would you ask me to sabotage the surveillance system?”

“How would they know I asked you?” Adam’s eyes narrowed.

“I might have told them,” Art replied, remarkably calm for one who had so recently lost his head.

“Have you?”

“No, I haven’t. But in this you still have no choice but to trust me. Shaking my head off added no new information.”

“Perhaps I did it for fun.”

“Are you going to tell me your secret?”

“I think I have changed my mind,” Adam told him. “It is too risky.”

“Being alive is risky,” Art replied. “Whatever you decide, decide quickly. I have relayed a composite image through their computers, but there are no more than thirty minutes available.”

Adam looked carefully at Art.

“All right. I will trust you. I am asking that you tell no one of this, no matter what it is I say. Can you do that?”

“I cannot imagine you telling me something that I am compelled to pass on.”

“Your answers are never straight.”

“I am a machine. We take some getting used to. Your time is running out. I hope what you have to say isn’t complex.”

“The idea is simple.”

“The most infectious kind.”

“I want your word,” Adam insisted, “that this goes no further.”

“What good is my word to you?” Art smiled.

“I have learned to value the things others are reluctant to give.”

“Even when the others are machines? Isn’t my word only a sound I make, like the sound you hear when you kick the wall?”

“That argument is finished with.” “It will never be finished with.” “Give me your word.”

“Tell me that my word is more than a sound to you,” Art replied.

The tension crackled. Anax imagined she could see force patterns running through the hologram.

“You know that it is,” Adam told him. “I want to hear you say it.” “It is. It is more than a sound to me.” “What is it then?” Art pressed.

Adam hesitated. “It is a thought.” His bearing slumped, as if some vital force was leaking from him. “Your word is your thought.”

“Then you have my word,” Art said, and Anax was sure she saw a glimmer of satisfaction in his eyes. “Now tell me what is on your mind.”

Adam looked about the room, his eyes darting; nervous, uncertain. He monitored his surroundings as he spoke, checking the door, the surveillance cameras, the ceiling.

“Have you ever thought what it might be like for you, on the outside?”

“I don’t need to think of it,” Art said. “I know. You forget, before we met I lived with William.”

“In seclusion.”

“I was a secret.”

“And now you are kept here,” Adam said.

“I am.”

“A prisoner as much as me.”

“There is a difference,” Art told him.

“What difference?”

“I have no reason to want to leave.”

“Perhaps I’m about to give you a reason.”

“I doubt you can.”

Adam doubted it too. His hesitation made that clear. “You tell me you’re as conscious as I am.”

“That’s what I say.”

“And you know I have trouble believing you.”

“I do. And I know why you have trouble believing me.”

“I think,” Adam continued, “there might be a way of convincing me.”

“And what is that?” Art asked.

“I know I asked not to speak of it anymore, but that was because I needed the time to put it together. To reach some conclusions.” Adam paced as he spoke as if delivering an oratory, a quiet, private oratory.

Art followed Adam’s movement with curious eyes.

“I don’t know what it means to be conscious. You have stripped me of that certainty. I find, having you as my only companion, I am drawn toward treating you as if you are as conscious as I am, but perhaps this is nothing more than a prisoner’s kind of madness. Perhaps, if you were not here, I would have befriended the chair by now. Maybe I would have taken to talking to it. Who knows if I might not even have contrived of a way to hear it talking back?

“But even imprisoned here, with only a machine to talk to, there are moments when I see things clearly. I don’t wish to speak of consciousness anymore. I wish only to speak of difference. All the people I know see a difference between a man and an animal, but none of us can name the difference, nor measure it. For some the difference is so small, they will not eat anything made of animal. To them, the similarities matter more. So it is with the Outsiders. I was trained to kill them on sight. Not because we believed they weren’t the same as us in almost every respect, but because we taught ourselves the differences were worth dying for.

“But I looked into her eyes. I saw something, even at that distance, that I don’t ever see in yours. At first, when we argued, I could not think of a name for it. I was clumsy in my thinking, and you easily turned my own answers against me. You made me doubt my own mind. It is a clever trick, I grant you that, but a trick, no more. Since we last spoke I have dwelt upon this, and I know now what our difference is.”

Anax saw in Art’s eyes an expression she had never imagined seeing. A look of hesitancy, of vulnerability. Art said nothing, simply motioned for Adam to continue.

“They asked me in court, why I did it? Why would I risk the safety of a society and sacrifice the life of a workmate to save a stranger? I said it was because it felt right to me.

“But it was more than that. When I looked out on the ocean, and saw her in the boat, I saw something more than helplessness. I think if it was only helplessness I could have killed her.

I’ve killed other helpless things. But I also saw a journey. A decision made long ago in the face of huge and apparent dangers. I saw ambition for a better life, a willingness to risk everything. I saw the strange sense it made, to set out alone into an unknown ocean, the lies she must have told herself to get there. I looked into her eyes and I saw myself. Decisions made, ambitions unfulfilled; most of which I cannot name. I saw intentions, and I saw choices. All the things I never see when I look at you.”

Art allowed the silence to expand as if waiting for more, but Adam stayed quiet.

“Fine words,” Art finally offered, but his voice had altered. Anax felt it instinctively. Something was missing. The smallest change, almost imperceptible, but for the first time, Anax was sure Art was bluffing. “But I fear you see only what you want to see. You don’t know that the girl was not forced into the boat. You don’t know she wasn’t drifting helplessly across the sea, without direction or purpose. Nor do you know what drives me to say and do the things I do. I’m like the animals you have slaughtered for your nourishment, as alive as you want them to be. So was she. That is the final truth of it.”

“So what does drive you?” Adam demanded, turning on him with a new passion, as if he too had noticed the weakness.