Pygmalion Unbound (2 page)

Without a brain, though, Number 11 was nothing more than a pretty doll. Fortunately, he’d had a sample for that, too…

His hand jerked, a twinge in his right arm.
Success,
a
nd just in time.

“How’s she doing?”

Crane swiveled around and greeted the man in the doorway. Tall and mahogany-skinned with wire-rimmed glasses, Dr. Derel Franklin wrote the code that had been put into the RNA-based organic computer that served as the brain.

“So far, so good. Take a look,” Crane said, waving him in and turning the monitor.

Franklin leaned over the desk, peering at the cam feed. “Glitches?”

“Not yet. Basic exploratory behavior, getting acquainted with her surroundings, herself.” Number 11 lifted up the simple white shift they had dressed her in, taken it off, spent a good three minutes running hands over her long legs, her buttocks, midriff, breasts, and exploring between her legs, before putting the shift back on.

“It’s really working this time,” Franklin said. Seven of the previous ten attempts had terminated in the tank. The last three had decanted and flatlined.

“We can start with the behavioral therapy tomorrow.”

“You think she’s ready?”

“Of course. Look at her. If she was going to freeze up, it would have happened by now.”

“I’d give it another day or two, make sure we don’t overload her. Is the psychologist here?” Franklin asked.

“Flew in from Madison last night. We’re getting her settled into the rental house.”

They watched Number 11 test the texture of the walls, the bedsheets. Crane stared at the screen, then abruptly switched it off with a guilty look, as though he’d been caught window-peeping.

Franklin was also captivated by the lithe creature on the video monitor. “What’re you gonna call her? Can’t keep saying ‘Hey, you.’ How about Eve?”

“Too obvious,” Crane said. “I don’t want any pressure to build an Adam.”

“Why not?”

“I’ll get to it. But the female form is less threatening, I told you that some time ago. Less
Terminator
.”

“You didn’t see the third one.”

“Besides, there was a really bad android movie back in the eighties called
Eve of Destruction
, and I can just see clips of that one being exhumed and played. Not the image we want running on CNN or MSNBC.”
Or for the Nobel Committee
.

“Barbie?” Franklin smiled.

Crane shot him a disgusted look. “Get serious. I was thinking about Maria.”

“From
Metropolis
?”

“Yeah. First cinematic representation of artificial life.”

“Bad karma, man. I’ve read
Metropolis
and I’ve seen the movie. It all ends badly. Pick another.”

“No,” Crane mused. “I rather like it. It fits somehow.”

2

Dr. Alannah Kelly lowered the window of the rental Ford electric at the security fence and handed over identification to one of the two men standing outside a booth. The guards weren’t soft, retired rent-a-cops. The blonde crew cut man who took her ID had the hard look of recent-ex-military, dressed in pressed and starched black fatigues with the AC corporate insignia. His duty belt held handcuffs, a radio, a taser, and a 9mm pistol with a clip loaded into the magazine.

Rather than limply wave her through the reinforced gate, he ran the ID through a scanner, made a phone call, and only then let her pass. She slid noiselessly into a VISITOR slot.

The American Cybernetics campus gleamed in the early spring sun. The public face of AC was a smoked-glass, concrete and steel five-story cube behind four identical cylindrical towers, each holding a biolab, surrounded by a high security fence, set in the shadow of the Rocky Mountains.

You could tell a lot about a company by its parking lot. American Cybernetics, by this measure, was doing well. No clunkers with mismatched fenders, missing hubcaps, held together with Bondo. She parked among a sea of SUVs and mid- to upper-range sedans, some internal combustion and some hybrid and a few electrics, not the transportation of the minimum-wage set. No Greenpeace bumper stickers, but lots of Honor Students in employee households. She pegged the percentage of Republicans at seventy percent give or take five points.

Which confirmed what she had learned of American Cybernetics through Internet research and private inquiries conducted by friends in the psychology department. Fred Kaplan, nearly sixty and with tenure in the computer science department, had flown here to their labs and worked on some obstacle recognition and locomotion software with an AC team in 2021.

It was privately held, Kaplan told her, founded in 2010 by computer and bioscience types, with the goal of creating artificial intelligence programs, as well as perfecting humanoid robot technology. AC was America’s belated entry into the AI race — a race the Koreans and Japanese and Chinese were at the present winning.

“Very efficient,” he’d told her, sitting in his office one wintry afternoon. “Closest thing in this country to a centralized cohesive entity directing cybernetics research. They’re hiring away the best talent, getting billions in funding from the government, and producing results. They developed and patented the HARLI four years ago — ”

“HARLI?”

“Humanoid Analog Robot with Learning Intelligence,” Kaplan explained. “Mechanical, covered with a skin-like substance. Manual dexterity close to human. It can fold towels, napkins, even do origami, and the locomotion is about seventy-five percent human.”

“Not exactly a Terminator, is it?”

“No, thank God,” Kaplan snorted. “But when we get a Terminator, they’ll make it.”

When
, she noted.
Not if
.

He ran a hand through his unruly graying hair. “Where was I? Oh, right. Efficient, real image-conscious, not quite as Prussian as IBM in the sixties, but close. Security is tight. And not surprising, since they have hot labs for their nano work.”

“Nanos?” Not illegal, but heavily regulated by the feds through half a dozen agencies.

“It’s how they claim to turn out the synthetic skin for HARLI. And Christ only knows what else. I only had a Delta-Level clearance.”

“And Crane?”

Kaplan raised an eyebrow. “Desmond Crane? That’s who made this offer?” Kelly nodded. Kaplan leaned back, stared at the ceiling for a moment, gathered his thoughts. “I met him a few times. He’s working on some kind of AI project, way above my grade. About forty then, no family I could see, and a bit…
possessed
is the best term for it. Even in a pressure cooker like American Cybernetics, he stands out.”

“Thinks he’s God?”

“I don’t think so. But with that type…” Kaplan’s voice trailed off.

She’d encountered Crane only once before, and then by chance — in San Francisco three years ago as he’d ruminated over the constraints imposed by conventional computer technology, how the simple binary 10101 code was never going to lead to a true artificial intelligence. It would be years, decades, he said, before the computing power of the human brain could be matched by something silicon based, if it ever could The alternative was hinted at, but never openly expressed — some kind of super-enhancement of human brain tissue. The only roadblock was that the government had banned such activity the year before. Given the security set-up here and the hush-hush Deep Black reputation of American Cybernetics, she wondered if Crane had found a way around the ban — or if he was simply ignoring it.

A small white stone reception building sat at the head of the parking lot, the only break in a second ring of barbed-wire topped cyclone fence. White warning signs were posted along the fence.

Electrified. Jesus, corporate espionage must be worse than I thought
.

Or
— a thought from watching too many late-night monster movies as a child —
maybe they’re trying to keep something from getting out
.

The interior of the reception building was climate controlled, set at a constant sixty-eight degrees. A long counter ran the length of the building, broken only by a security scanner. Two more uniformed security personnel stood behind the counter, one a large crew cut man who stood six-five with maybe five percent body fat and the other a woman who was five-six but compact and who moved like a panther. Kelly had to run her purse and portfolio through a smaller scanner on a conveyer belt, and had to pass through the larger scanner three times, each time removing more and more of the tiny bits of metal on her person. It was worse than courthouse security, the few times she’d been summoned as an expert witness in murder trials.

Satisfied that she was not a spy or a terrorist, the woman radioed the main office. A fresh-scrubbed brunette in a dark blazer and skirt, who introduced herself simply as Julie, lead her to Dr. Desmond Crane’s office. She handed Kelly a laminated tag. “Keep this on at all times. We’ll have a permanent one made for you.”

The day before, Kelly had been met at the airport by one of the AC security types, and handed a sheaf of papers and final security clearances to sign once she had been taken to the rental house reserved for her. It was a definite departure from the cozy, informal academic world. The OpSec-conscious mindset she remembered from her career Army father still grated on her.

On the other hand, she thought, maybe a little cloak-and-dagger was what she needed. Tenured and comfortably ensconced in an endowed chair at the University of Wisconsin, teaching one graduate seminar and an upper-level class every semester, with plenty of time in between for research and publication — her life had devolved into routine. Once she reached tenure, she plateaued. The next mountain had yet to materialize.

So when Crane had contacted her a year ago, inquiring about her availability, it had been an opportunity for career enhancement. She was up for a sabbatical this year anyway, and after being offered a ridiculous sum of money for a semester with American Cybernetics, she had accepted.

Problem was she had no idea what she was going to be doing for the next four months.

Julie led her down an uncracked, meticulously-edged concrete sidewalk lined with waist-high shrubs pruned at right angles, to the cubical administration building. The lobby was huge, a cathedral of smoked glass and burnished metal and dark wood with granite underfoot and acoustics that muted footsteps and conversation. They entered a chrome elevator that barely moved. A faint
ping
sounded as they reached their destination. “Fourth floor,” Julie said with a cold cheerfulness as they stepped into the hallway. They walked through the whispery ambient-lit polished corridor. “Doctor Crane’s office is down at the end, on the right. I’ll show you there.”

“Thank you,” Kelly replied. Not quite joyful assistance, more like making sure she didn’t stray where she didn’t belong, a silken smile over cold steel. The guide’s businesslike steps were muffled on the new dark blue carpeting. She stopped at the end of the hall, the door on the right had a small LCD touchpad by the doorframe. Julie placed a finger on the screen, and it lit up.

“Doctor Kelly is here,” she said.

“Send her in.” Crane’s voice was as she remembered it, high-pitched and unaccented. Another touch, the door slid open, and Julie motioned Kelly through.

Crane was seated behind a large chrome-and-wood desk, the office brightly lit from the windows. Done in an ultra-modern or eighties throwback techno décor that was all the rage, chrome and black/gray plastic with blue and red LED lights, but totally devoid of any personal touch. No family pictures, not even a framed diploma or certificate. No clue as to who Crane
was
. A second man, African-American, tall and muscular with a leonine head, glasses and short afro, stood as she entered. They both wore coats and ties.

Crane stood and took her hand. He was tall and thin, with a shock of tightly-curled dark hair going gray at the temples. “Welcome to American Cybernetics, Doctor Kelly. I’m so glad you decided to accept my offer and spend your sabbatical here. We’re going to be doing some exciting work.”

“Pleased to see you again, Doctor Crane.”

“I hope the quarters we rented are comfortable.” American Cybernetics had secured a small bungalow in a quiet upscale residential neighborhood, along with the rental car, for the duration.

“I don’t need much. My father was in the Army,” she said. “I moved around a lot, and the quality of the housing was pretty low sometimes. But I imagine I’ll be spending most of my time here,” she said.

“We all will,” Crane said. “This is Dr. Derel Franklin. He’s part of the team here, assisting with our patient.”

Franklin took her hand in his giant one, and shook it gently. His grip was firm, could have been bone-crushing with his arms, but he made it courtly and gentle. The smile was faint but friendly. His greeting was in his eyes.

Crane said, “You’ve signed all the security clearances, I presume.”