Solid State Rhyme: A Novelette (Mandate) (10 page)

Bright light spilled into the kitchen as he opened the refrigerator door to get something for breakfast. He poured his favorite cereal into a bowl, followed by an ample amount of milk. He carried the bowl of cereal into the living room, flipped on a lamp, and sat on the couch. He flipped through a few channels on the TV, and was about to turn the volume up when he suddenly recalled the thought that had eluded him days ago.

Daniel sat up straight, a chill running through him, his eyes open wide in stunned awe. Slowly, he whispered, giving life to his thoughts, “I never set the alarm clock by the bed. If the power was out, then who set it to 9:13 AM?”

Wesley was right. This might very well change the world.

Epilogue

Decatur, Illinois, USA

T-minus 11 years, 6 months

“Getting settled, then, love?” Daniel said while heading home on the I-55.

“Aye, we’re makin’ a home of it, dear. Lit’l Andy found the back yard full o’ adventure.”

“Ah, that’s good to hear,” Daniel said. “Glad he’s got a proper yard to play in.”

“Darling, you know I’m with you one hundred percent, but I just don’t understand why we would want to commute so far? We could have chosen a place much closer to work.”

“Is that what you want?” Daniel asked. “We can move upstate.”

“I’ve gotten to know a few of the misses in my department. They live in the suburbs. There’s Naperville, Wheaton—and one miss lives in Aurora in a
riverfront
place! She invited us to dinner.”

“That sounds lovely, dear. Who are they?”

“The Bakers,” Emma said.

“Ha! Are they English?”

“Uh, no, not at all.”

“Baker, Baker. Hmm. I can’t place the name. Your department, I take it?”

“Aye. Laura studied nano-medicine at Albany. Her husband, Thomas, is a geneticist from Berkeley.”

“I look forward to meeting them,” he said.

“And they have a child! A lit’l girl called Jolene. She’s about Andy’s age, too.”

“That’s just lovely, my dear,” Daniel said. “Hang on; I’ll be there in a bit.”

“Right. See you in a bit.”

*

“Is that it?” Emma asked, looking over Daniel’s shoulder later that night.

He turned his head to look at her, rubbing his eyes. Emma gave him a quick shoulder massage that made his whole body relax and seem to give up the goals of the day. “Do you mean, the source code for the Bots?”

“Of course that’s what I mean,” she said, punching him softly in the shoulder and then resuming the neck massage. “Ah, that feels good. Umm, yes, the original source code for the Bots and the programs that assembled them. And . . . .”

“And
what
? I don’t like the sound of that pause!”

“I still have a memory dump from one of them. The solid state version was considerably advanced beyond the old source code.”

“Solid state?” she said. “Has a nice
rhyme
to it.”

“Could define any sort of electronics equipment but the phrase has sort of . . .
evolved
. . . to mean live data in a computer system. Live memory.”

“As opposed to . . . .”

“Frozen storage. File data. Inactive,” he explained.

Emma stopped rubbing his neck to get a closer look at the screen. “So, is that it, the live memory?”

“Yes.”

“What are you thinking of doing with it? Ooh, my neck hairs just stood up thinking about the . . . the
Bots
.”

“Why, dear? They aren’t dangerous by any means.”

“Oh, well, no,” she said, “but, they were
alive
, you know?”

“Aye,” he said, and then sighed loudly. “I was never able to track them down. Maybe they were purged. Maybe they found a quiet place to live. Or,
maybe
, this is all that’s left of them,” he said, gesturing to the screen.

“What are you going to do?” she asked.

“I have a prototype robot chassis in the works. All new hardware. We have to write the drivers and OS from scratch. I think I’ll see what these guys can do with it in a controlled environment
off the grid
.”

Emma’s eyes grew wide and she caught her breathe. “That sounds rather . . .
exciting
.”

“Oh? You aren’t worried?” he asked.

Emma took long seconds to answer. “I am. But I also trust you. You aren’t just a boy in over your head this time.”

“I feel like dancing!” he said impulsively, then stood and led her into a waltz pose.

“But, dear, there’s no music.”

“Oh, yes there is!” Daniel said, then threw his head back and charged across the room with her in hand.

About the Author

J.S. Harbour has had a lifelong love affair with hard science fiction. The Mandate of Earth was his first novel, finally released after 12 years of off-and-on work. He worked for many years as a software developer and taught computer science full time for five years. He enjoys writing about artificial intelligence, singularity theory, and physics. He has been writing professionally since 2002 with 19 technical books to his credit. He writes stories that he enjoys reading and hopes you will enjoy them as well.