Or So They Had Been Told. (A Short Story)
Cyborgs Don’t Love. Cyborgs Don’t Feel…
“There has been a terrible mistake,” said Ashmita, her voice filled with anxiety. Her eyes met Rolf’s through shocked silence. She pressed her thumb into the messenger-bot’s front panel, which emitted a faint bleep to confirm delivery of its message. “I suppose there is nothing left to do but watch.” The bot retreated. Both turned their padded swivel chairs toward a screen displaying a pixelated image that gradually came into focus. A small figure ran down an alley between congested huts, disappearing now and then as it passed under corrugated tin roofs and irregular overpasses. Ashmita watched in dismay as it fell face down in a pile of mud and got up undeterred to continue its frenetic progress.
“It wasn’t ready, Rolf. We should have increased security around the lab’s perimeter.” Rolf cast a sidelong glance at her -
“It wasn’t up to me in the end, Ashmita. This wasn’t the highest-priority prototype being developed in our department. It -”
“Not the highest priority?” she hissed. “Are any other prototypes trying to escape to earth to-to-to wreak havoc before they are ready?” Her voice had reached a fever pitch. He didn’t respond. She pushed herself emphatically from the chair and began to pace. “It’s just a child,” she muttered under her breath. She wasn’t supposed to have bonded extensively with the prototype, but this, this should have been avoided at all costs.
Of course the researchers built the prototype with the express purpose of returning it to Earth, a perfected specimen of artificial intelligence with the capacity to solve intractable problems far too advanced for humans. If it arrived too soon, though, the results would be completely unpredictable. It hasn’t mastered empathy yet, Ashmita lamented. It hasn’t mastered caring, humility, emotional perception. She glanced at Rolf, who was hunched forward, eyes trained on the little collection of pixels now running through a busy road. Black and yellow taxis, rickshaws, hand-drawn carts all bubbled around it, halting, honking as it zipped in front of them, barely swerving in time to avoid it. Rolf chuckled.
“At least we did a good job of the kinetics, Ashmita. Look at that! So efficient! So nimble!”
“That’s all you care about, Rolf?! It could be damaged, years of work wasted. It could cause damage too! It doesn’t have good spatial sense yet.” She glanced up at the screen to see the prototype face-plant in a pile of garbage heaped on the side of the road. A cow looked on, chewing disinterestedly. Rolf’s shoulders shook in silent laughter.
“At least it doesn’t have a sense of smell!” He roared, helpless. Ashmita shook her head disapprovingly but made a mental note to add ‘olfactory sensation’ to the list of things she would incorporate if she ever got the prototype back. Rolf wasn’t done.
“Look at it! Such precise design! None of those people could tell it wasn’t one of them!” Presently a slight beeping noise started, corresponding with a green indicator in the bottom right corner of the screen. BEEP! BEEP! BEEEEP! The speed and volume increased, demanding attention. The sound indicated a nearby extraction point, but how? There were no known extraction points within several hundred kilometres of where their prototype was now.
A dim memory stirred in the recesses of Ashmita’s brain. She squinted at the image on the screen. The topography was familiar. A congested city built on a peninsula jutting into the ocean on three sides. High apartment buildings hugged by rows of shanties.
Suddenly it dawned on her.
“My extraction point!” She’d been a little girl playing next to a garbage-strewn river. Heard a roaring sound, looked into the sky for its source. She’d felt herself slowly losing consciousness and woken up in a satellite facility orbiting earth. Disorientation. Confusion. Her chest tightened. These sensitivities were unprecedented. She tried to name them: loss, alienation, helplessness. These should have been stripped when the Developers fused her human body seamlessly with machine components, of that she was certain. Still the flood continued. Sadness. Fear…Worry…digging in, searing, white-hot, burning a hole in her brain circuitry.
When did the forbidden bonding with the prototype take hold of her, silently, without her consent? She thought of its face. I am a mother — the words materialized from nowhere. She tried to correct herself: I am a researcher. I am an experimenter… She stared blindly, frantically at the little figure on the screen.
BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! Did Rolf feel the crescendo crushing him, too? His expression was passive, but she sensed something beneath the surface. Suddenly an idea dawned on her. She struggled to make words from it.
“We can extract him!” She shouted at Rolf.
“Him?” He raised one white, bushy eyebrow at her, a half-smile playing on his lips, “And who is he?”
“The- the prototype!” Ashmita gasped. “That’s an extraction point! That’s where I was extracted! We can use the Portal!”
“We aren’t supposed to use outdated extraction points.” He replied flatly, unconvinced.
Ashmita was beside herself.
“He might not get to a current one — ever!” She exclaimed, exasperated. “Besides, there aren’t any in India, not in Bombay! Please, he’s our son! screamed her thoughts from the same nowhere-place, buried in her circuitry. BEEP! BEEP! The prototype was close now. “Please Rolf! We made something together; in your own way I know you care about that.”
His gaze caught her off guard. He regarded her with tenderness — concern? (Love is not something cyborgs experience, or so they had been told.)
“I can’t authorize an unsanctioned extraction alone,” She begged. He nodded, filling her with a rush of gratitude. They turned to the control panel. Ashmita hurriedly scanned her thumbprint, then entered the coordinates displayed in the bottom right hand corner of the screen — the same ones someone must have used to extract her over 40 years ago.
“Second extractor’s scan,” the system prompted in icy, outdated monotone. Rolf scanned his thumbprint and the beeping stopped.
“Subject in range.” Came the directive. Did it sound impossibly optimistic, or was she making that up?
Ashmita heard the familiar roaring build up in her ears, though the screen transmitted no sound. And then the prototype was suddenly gone. Disappeared entirely.
Something incandescent illuminated Ashmita’s face as she met Rolf’s gaze. Her chest fluttered and she knew he felt it too. Momentarily, they heard the sound of footsteps and a knock at the door. There stood a delivery-bot next to their prototype: covered in dirt and scratches, but in one piece.
“Thumb print here to confirm receipt.” Rolf obliged and the bot rolled off, leaving the three of them alone.
Ashmita and Rolf knelt down at the same time, assessing their prodigal creation with new eyes.
It felt strange, yet familiar.
