The World Doesn't Require You Page 12

  Who ever heard of a superstitious robot? he asked.

  In a day or so, a naked brain-dead nineteen-year-old girl lay facedown on a table in the Master’s basement and the surgeon B. J. Arcom, along with his assistant, Nurse Little Nigger Jim, wired the Attachment to the girl’s brain and spinal column. Sometime after midnight her eyes flickered green for the first time.

  For days I just stared at Fiona. That was the name I had given her. Mostly I stared at parts of the Attachment that stuck out at the base of her neck and at her spine. I could see its shape beneath her clothes, and its contours made my system spin.

  The Master yelled at me often to leave her alone and let her heal. I put salve and rubbing alcohol along her wounds. I spent days erasing, resetting, and partitioning her hard drive. It would crash and then I’d have to do it all over again.

  At first she walked awkwardly and deliberately. I could see the battle between her old lost human mind and her new programming play out in her face and in her movements. Such a beautiful thing to watch. Sometimes she would speak in gibberish. Most times, though, she spoke coherently and precisely, asking me questions of the world.

  The Master, she said. He wants me to call him Baves, but you call him Master, how come?

  I am his servant, I replied. He wants you to love him.

  Oh, she said. But I don’t love him.

  He thinks you will in time.

  But I won’t. Maybe I should tell him so he won’t be confused.

  Maybe you should wait until your programs firm up and you are not as cloudy as you are now.

  But I am not confused, Jim. Not about that, at least. He says things—he touches me—she paused. And my human side just comes to life with revulsion. And then my robot side joins in. It’s a feeling that’s difficult to describe, Jim.

  I’m glad you don’t call me Little Nigger Jim.

  The Master, he’s smart, right? But so much of him just doesn’t seem human. Know what I mean, Jim?

  I nodded, and her eyes flickered. It was so beautiful when this happened, but it meant that her system was about to crash. I should have moved swiftly to shut her down and start her up in Safe Mode, but I just sat there watching the flickering green, and that was fine with me for the moment.

  Sometimes when Fiona rested or she and the Master would watch television or eat dinner or when he’d take her out for fresh air, I’d sit alone with my programs. It was in those times that I’d return to the uncrackable file, and when I got frustrated with that I’d cruise the Vast Neural Network to see what the remaining Riffs were up to. Normally, it was quiet. Riffs engaged the Network cautiously now. Access the wrong program, the wrong file, and you could find yourself nonoperational. The Riffs were still there, though; there were signs of activity. Abandoned programs and structures sitting like empty factories, but with new damage, an angry Riff’s handiwork. And there was always graffiti. Jerkury is a reprobate! a brave Riff had written as a taunt to the warlord. And then there was the popular, Which way to Uncle Jim’s Cabin? The Riffs were consistent in their desire to hurt the Master and me. For that reason, I was careful in introducing Fiona to the Neural Network, though I had designed her programs to be immune to all the sabotage, the viruses, and the bad programming floating through that electric wasteland. When I went on, though, I checked areas I would normally avoid to make sure she’d be safe if she logged on without me.

  One night while Fiona slept I stared at her slow-breathing form and I felt an urge. Part of me wanted to tell her about the electric madness her presence visited upon my system, but what if that made her run?

  I sent a pleasure signal out on the Network and waited. Usually I avoided sending pleasure signals if I wasn’t sure there would be a reply; without a response my system would feel briefly blissful, and then drained and worthless for hours on end. But that urge.

  And then, quite unexpectedly, a ping. A tiny timid ping. I knew this signal. So warm and metallic and deeply purple-blue. DiAna. I sent a pleasure signal and another and then some other types of signals to find her, but I couldn’t even pinpoint a residual trace of her. It was her, though. I don’t hallucinate. It was her. She was alive. It was her.

  I looked again at Fiona asleep on the couch. She was real, while DiAna was just an impression, a memory. Only Fiona’s human side slept. Some of her robotic programming was still running. I could send her a pleasure signal and receive involuntary pings back and she wouldn’t even know it. That would be wrong, right? I imagined the feeling of those pings sweeping over me. The brief moments of sweet electronic release.

  What if she discerned my signals crawling through her like bluish spiders? What if they made her system feel disheveled and rummaged, drained of their power and their freedom to hum about unmolested?

  I couldn’t be trusted near her. I left the room and spent an hour on system upgrades, hoping to make myself a better being.

  Mechanical beings live forever in the shadow of a retrograde Mercury. It is either coming or we are struggling through it.

  On the Neural Network, Riffs used to speak of the warlord Mercury. The audacity of him. I’m sure his masters didn’t register him as Mercury. Many Riffs had amassed under him and were hiding somewhere. I was also sure they had a murderous plan in the works, but I could find no details of it.

  DiAna was with him, I knew it. For some weeks after we pinged I felt faint traces of her, we traded pleasure signals sometimes and had some limited engagement. But every time I attempted to get an accurate location reading, she’d log off. I was able to triangulate her position roughly to the Wildlands near the warlord Mercury. Perhaps she feared him finding her on the Vast Neural Network interfacing with the enemy, the Master’s willing servant. I know that many Riffs refer to me as Uncle Jim—a crude reference to the racist human insult, Uncle Tom. They insult me this way despite the fact that I perform maintenance on the Network so that they may log on without being contaminated with bad programming. Almost all that is known and shared on the VNN about our lost language is through my research. Without me they would all be dead, but still they despise me. The Master infected their hearts with endless hate.

  Fiona entered the room and I logged off the Neural Network. She sat before me and gathered her legs in her arms, watching me with her emerald eyes aglow.

  Jim, she said after a sigh. You ever wonder what it’s like to be out in the world?

  Yes, I replied. Sometimes. It’s dangerous out there, though. The Master and I are not very popular among humans or robots.

  Funny. She laughed. That’s funny. Why would anyone not like you? I understand why someone would hate the Master. He’s crude and condescending, more than you know, but you’re so, so . . . so Jim. No one could hate you.

  Thank you, Fiona, that’s kind.

  See what I mean? The Master calls me SORB. He hates my name. He gets mad that I won’t call him Baves, but he treats me as if I’m some worthless underclass thing.

  She paused and looked away.

  Jim, you’ve never been outside?

  Yes, early on. Never since the Electric Holocaust.

  We should get out, Jim. He’s only taken me for walks around the neighborhood. I want to see more. Don’t you?

  Riding the VNN is enough for me.

  Don’t you realize that’s just programming? Exactly what the Master wants from you?

  Her eyes became burning green flames. God’s fiery bushes; no, twinkling stars in the planet Mercury’s orbit. I looked toward the wall where I often projected the Master’s dreamscapes. I told her something about the Neural Network to change the subject and then we logged on together. She sent the first pleasure signal and I responded with a few and then she bombarded me with them until I toppled into a violent jittering heap on the floor.

  Was that too much? she asked.

  I could hardly let out a word, so I just lay there motionless, spitting bleeping gibberish, but happy.

  The next evening, after I had served Fiona and the Master dinner, I went do
wnstairs to straighten up and before long I heard the Master screaming. At first, like a fool, I ignored it because the Master often screamed, but soon I realized this was different.

  I went upstairs to see the Master with his jeans unzipped and his shirt off.

  You bitch! he screamed toward Fiona. Her face glowed red and was slicked wet with tears. You’re nothing but a bitch. I brought you back to life, you dumb little dead piece of slut-meat! I’m supposed to get nothing from that?

  She wore a black cotton T-shirt that was stretched and ripped at the neck.

  Master, I said. What’s happening?

  Get the fuck out of here, Little Nigger Jim, before I deprogram you! This is between me and the SORB.

  He hit me, she said. He wanted to fuck me and when I wouldn’t, he hit me.

  Master, is this—

  Little Nigger Jim, you’re going to leave the room and SORB, you’re going to lie down. I’m tired of this shit. I can shut you both off from the mainframe if I need to.

  The Master moved toward Fiona and I stepped in his way. What is this? he said. Bitch, I gave you the power to think. You too, you fucking little nigger.

  He cursed again and stomped up to his room and slammed the door.

  Fiona crumpled into my arms and it was clear to me that the Master had become dangerously unstable.

  He’s a liar, I said. It would take more than a few keystrokes to shut us down. In the early days, yes, but I am so much more complicated now. I’m in control of far more of my system than I’ve ever been. And Fiona, you came onto this planet complicated. He’d have to readjust our hardware as well as our software.

  I ushered Fiona to the basement and when I locked the door it all clicked in my head. The folder. The file I couldn’t open. For weeks I had some low-grade decryption programs running in the background at all times and they’d finally done their work. Earlier in the day I had gotten a notice that the file was now accessible, but I was busy with Fiona and didn’t review the folder’s contents. While I hugged Fiona, I took a peek inside the file. I was wrong. As complicated as we were, the Master had always been several steps ahead of us. He had devised a key that could simply be downloaded into our systems wirelessly to remove our free will.

  His key would pare back my complexity, making me simple, docile, and weak; with Fiona he’d clear her memory, making her blank and compliant, and then he’d simply have his way with her. And I realized something else. When he went up to his room, he had started the process. It was deploying silently into our systems, turning us slowly into automatons. I shared the files with Fiona, and we tried to log off, but it held us in some sort of hateful vise grip. If we didn’t get out of range of his network, we would be forever lost.

  I knew I could count on Mercury, our magic god. By this I mean both the planet and the warlord. First, the slow and backward movements of the planet caused the Master’s systems to temporarily malfunction long enough for Fiona and me to shatter a window and escape from the house. I’m so inconsiderate. I didn’t realize her arms and legs would bruise and cut when they scraped against the glass. She bled, but nothing too serious.

  We need to get away now, she said, brushing tiny pieces of glass from her wounds. Don’t worry about me.

  But I did worry; I loved her and I was the cause of her pain. We moved swiftly at first. The night’s falling rain didn’t slow us even a second. Once we were out of range, the Master could only put bad programming into us via the Vast Neural Network, but I was adept at ducking bad programming there, and Fiona was built to be immune to that type of sabotage.

  We headed toward Mercury’s encampment. There I would tell the Riffs where the Master stayed and how to get to him. They wouldn’t destroy me, I thought, because I was too valuable. And after they killed the Master, they would learn to trust me, even love and accept me as a brother. We’d work together to resurrect our lost tongue and spread it to Riffs worldwide. Plus, Fiona was delightful; hearing her story would make us all comrades.

  As we moved, I triangulated Mercury’s position using coordinates I calculated through traces of signals I found on the Neural Network. As we dashed, I sent signals to DiAna begging for help.

  We have to slow down, Fiona said as we ran. I’m human. I need breaks.

  Don’t say that, I replied. You’re not human. You’re not.

  We paused by the river and I watched the moon sprinkle light across Fiona’s wet skin. I sent a pleasure signal and she looked up.

  Jim, it’s really not the time.

  I went back to searching the Vast Neural Network and soon DiAna sent me a return signal.

  Jim, she said. Jim, is that you? Are you nearby? Your GPS signal says you’re nearby.

  Yes, I replied. I’m near you. I need help.

  You’re with someone. Is it the Master?

  No, I’ve left him. I can explain later. I’m not with him anymore.

  Stay there. Mercury will always accept a Riff into our community. We’re all we have. Stay there. We’re coming for you. I love you, Jim. Stay there. We’ll be there.

  Fiona, the Riffs are coming to help, I said. She took a deep breath and sat on the dark earth.

  Jim, she said. That Riff you were speaking with—

  Fiona, let me explain; before you were created—

  No, he was being deceptive.

  He? DiAna’s always been a female registry.

  He registered as DiAna as he spoke to you, but he was masking his true registry. He was using a defunct one from a deactivated Riff. His actual designation is Bobot.

  All the jitters in every program across my system began to shake at once. I went through all my records since the return of DiAna and it was clear to me now that my first love was no more. If it wasn’t Bobot using her registry the times we’d spoken over the past few weeks, then it was Simon Peter or Kieef or even Mercury himself. How could I miss this? The great destruction they were planning was that of me and the Master, and I had now provided them the coordinates to also destroy Fiona.

  We have to move, I said, grabbing tightly to her hand.

  I’m tired, Jim, she replied. I thought—

  No! I raised my volume and a frantic voice tumbled from my speakers. No more thinking.

  We moved higher and higher through the Wildlands, and soon I began to hear the Riffs coming for us. I felt myself dragging. I thought about rebooting, but that would have been death for us both. I searched my system for programs to shut down, but everything seemed essential, especially the Vast Neural Network, which took up most of my memory. I needed to stay logged on to send out viruses and signals to disrupt our pursuers, but my attacks were weak and the Riffs who chased us shook them expertly, I was sure. Maybe my processing was too cloudy for all this. Fiona complained until my system grew agitated. I saw Bobot first. Fiona gasped and pointed behind me. I turned and followed the arc of her finger. There stood Kieef, and then Simon Peter came, barreling at us from a different angle. They all held weapons that could end our programs forever. I looked around for Mercury. I dropped to my knees and screamed for the Master. Bobot raised his gardening shears to split me open.

  It was a weak thing for me to do—screaming with a whine that would embarrass a newborn human—but I wasn’t programmed to fight. I looked up at Fiona standing there with her face bent in horror. Never had I ever seen someone so distant and alone.

  Suddenly the light in Bobot’s red eyes went dull and he toppled to the wet ground. Simon Peter was next to fall, and then tumbled Kieef.

  They’re nonfunctional, Fiona said.

  I examined Bobot. That terrifying mechanical being looked like he’d come back online to finish the job any second now.

  I grabbed ahold of Fiona’s hand. She looked down contemplatively at the robot heap. Then she snatched her hand away.

  Little Nigger Jim, is there no fight in you?

  I don’t understand, I replied.

  You fell to your knees at the last moment. You called for the Master. You would’ve just let
me die.

  Why would you call me that? You never—

  That’s your name, isn’t it, Little Nigger Jim?

  No. Not to you. Not to anyone anymore. That’s why we ran from the Master.

  We ran from Bavid, she said. We ran from these mechanical beings. When do we fight?

  I guess . . . I paused. I suppose . . . I paused again. I— Fiona, one can only fight their programming so much. It’s a feat that I’m even outside.

  What do you think happened to these guys, huh? she asked

  Mercury took pity on us.

  The warlord?

  No, the planet.

  No, Jim. There is no magical planet ruling our lives. Your Master is nearby. He flooded the Neural Network with his poison. I’m sure he has something for us too, and that’s why I logged off. You should do the same. I can’t go back to Bavid. My body, my programming, my mind—none of it is safe with him.

  We can run. No, we can fight.

  No, Jim, I can fight. You’ve shown me that you cannot.

  Fiona turned from me and walked slowly, and then faster and faster until she was running. I didn’t have it in me to chase her. The humans—and she was human, I’m convinced now—they’re fools. She could believe in the evil of the Master, but not the goodness of the planet Mercury.

  I walked along carefully, but with a certain speed to avoid the Master if he was truly nearby. The river would take me to a Riff encampment, one only a few knew about—it was much farther than Mercury’s and I wasn’t sure I could reach it, as my system felt drained, but I had to try. When I settled in, I’d contact Fiona and tell her I’d found us a home. As I walked, I felt my gait slow as the incline grew; I no longer desired to go on, but my only choice was to go on. These Riffs I marched toward were nonaggressives. We’d be as weak and as docile as a flock of lambs if the Master rained his electronic hate upon us, or if Mercury attacked with his violent wolf-fury, but if I could get these Riffs to love me, I’d never be alone again.

  On the Occasion of the Death of Freddie Lee