How Are You Wired?
Part 2
Two months later, on a cloudless afternoon on the outskirts of Tucson, I was sitting on my patio, contemplating my luck. The afternoon sun laid short, prickly shadows down beside the potted cactus plants that lined the deck and a warm comfortable breeze blew in off the foothills to the west. I had been relaxing on the sun deck for over an hour, sipping a margarita, and had managed to coalesce into a warm, womb-like contentment, which almost made me forget why I had gone out onto the patio in the first place.
I watched Kali scurry around the kitchen, her precious little head popping in and out of view in the space between the countertop and cabinets. She was preparing food for a dinner party we were having that evening. For the first time in longer than I could remember, I felt genuinely happy. My life felt complete, and I told myself that after I read the unopened document on the table in front of me, any subtle fears remaining in my mind would be put to rest.
Getting Kali off Oasis-C had been no picnic. Because Kali had used up her leisure-time accrual on her trip to Vega System, I had to lie to the club manager at Eros Inc. and tell him I wanted to hire Kali as an escort for a business trip. Then I had to pay him an "accommodation surcharge," as he put it, and pay for the revenue the club would lose as a result of her absence. I had to bribe the customs clerk on the way out because he claimed he could be severely penalized for not obtaining Kali's service files. When we finally reached Earth, Customs separated us and got a different story from both of us as to the nature of our relationship, something we should have worked out while in transit. Kali said we were married. I said she was an escort. It took forever to get things untangled, and then the supervisor came in and informed us that Kali would have to undergo a whole battery of medical exams because she had no previous earth visitation record. I threw a fit and convinced them that there was something wrong with their database (I'm good at that), and they finally let us in without any unnecessary probing.
From the first day we arrived home, Kali was amazing. I didn't really know what to expect. In the back of my mind, I thought she might ditch me once we arrived on Earth. The opposite occurred. Right from the start, she put everything into our new relationship. We sat up late almost every night and talked, got to know each other inside and out. Some nights we'd hike to the top on one of the hills surrounding my ranch house, and make love under the blanket of familiar stars, and then spend the rest of the night making crazy plans for the future like kids on a camping trip.
A few weeks after we'd been back, I had some reservations about introducing her to my friends. I wondered what they would think. I wondered what she would say. I wondered if she would act differently around them. But Kali fit right in. She was friendly, animated, and engaging. She even had my old college buddy, Trips, howling with laughter one evening, something his wife hadn't witnessed in years. When we had some nosy business partners of mine from the consulting firm over for dinner, she made up an elaborate fictional history, saying she used to be a teacher in a U.F.C. free zone in Brazil. She was incredible. Every time I looked at her, I got a feeling in my gut like I was a kid seeing the Earth from the Moon for the first time.
I took another sip of Margarita and then opened the package on the table in front of me. It contained the original technical documentation for the beta version of the Ultima Model B. I had a colleague of mine procure it for me the first week Kali and I arrived on Earth. Back when I still had doubts about her. It had taken seven weeks to arrive, and my colleague said they refused to deliver it via any medium other than hard-copy mail. The Phoeneus Corporation was required by law to disclose the documentation, but it seemed they wanted to make it as difficult as possible to obtain.
I flipped to the contents page and found a section titled "Verbal Reprogramming Algorithms." I turned to the section and began reading:
"The Ultima Model B Cognitive Processor(tm) possesses a verbal reprogramming feature which allows exact customization of function, and provides a simple, reliable process for correcting any minor errors which may occur over time. To initialize Verbal Reconfiguration Mode, the certified owner must present the Model B Cognitive Processor with the following series of questions in exact order:
- A question beginning with the word "Who."
- A question immediately following the unit's response which begins with the word "What."
- A question immediately following the unit's second response which begins with the word "Where."
- A question immediately following the unit's third response which begins with the word "When."
- A question immediately following the
unit's fourth response which contains the word "Why" and ends in
tag question format.
Upon completion of the aforementioned line of questioning, the unit will state it's model designation, manufacturer, and serial number. At this time, ..."
I put the manual down and looked in on Kali again. I wondered why I still had doubts. I knew in my soul that she was human. There was a visceral connection between us that I couldn't deny. She was the embodiment of everything I'd ever hoped for in a woman. Still, there was a part of me that mocked my happiness, a part of me that said I was fooling myself. That part of me, that voice of doubt, had always been with me, never letting me fully enjoy my accomplishments in life. It had been there throughout my career, telling me I was substandard, incompetent. It had ruined my first marriage, telling me I didn't deserve it, that I wasn't good enough for my wife and that she would eventually find someone who could give her more. I decided it was time to silence that voice once and for all. I decided to ask her the questions listed in the manual and put my unfounded fears to rest.
After rereading the "Verbal Reprogramming" section a few times, I put together an inconspicuous line of questions in my head, and hesitantly walked inside. I took a seat at the kitchen table, and stared down at the saltillo tile floor as I reviewed the questions in my head.
Kali was standing over the island countertop in the kitchen, chopping radishes for the radicchio.
She paused as I sat down and flashed me a casual smile. "Too hot out there?"
"No. In fact, it's really comfortable. We might have to go for a swim later."
"Sounds good to me. As long as there isn't a dress code."
I watched her now. My eyes studied her hands as she steadied a head of broccoli on the cutting board, sliced off little flowerets, and then scooted them to the side of the board with the knife.
Even her hands were exquisitely crafted. I followed the shape of her tanned, sinewy arms over the beautiful, rounded angle of her feminine shoulders, and then, found myself fixating on the slight delicate craftsmanship of her neck. God, I loved everything about that woman. The innate levity of her features made her incredibly seductive and at the same time, accentuated her buoyant, childlike vigor. Her spirit was lighter than air. She was wearing a short off-white, spaghetti strap sundress and beige, ankle-strap heels. I decided, while entranced by her curvaceous calves, that as soon as I was done with my little experiment, I would make love to her right there in the kitchen. I wanted to mark the exact moment of my complete acceptance of her, and my new faith in myself, with a baptism of passion and emotion.
"Who was it that said, "All that is truth is beauty, and all beauty, truth?"
"I'm not sure. But I'm sure I used to know, before."
"What do you mean?"
"You know, before Oasis-C. Before they erased my memory. Are you all right? What's with the poetry?"
I held my tongue, careful not to speak and mess up the precise line of questioning outlined in the documentation. I tried to think of a way to couch the next question without sounding like a total nut. I noticed a glass of wine on the counter by the cutting board.
"Where's the wine?"
"On the wine rack." She looked at me and furrowed her brow. "Are you all right?"
I ignored the query and tried to remember which word the next question began with. Was it "why" or "when"? "When do the guests arrive?" I blurted out.
Kali set down the knife slowly and stared motionlessly at the cutting board beneath her. Her silence began to scare me, but I didn't speak. Finally, she turned to me, her eyes wet with tears.
"Say something, Denton."
I remained silent, not sure what the mixed expression on her face meant.
"Say anything. Go ahead." This time her voice was charged with contempt. An overwhelming surge of fear overtook me and a feeling swelled up in my gut, like I'd been back-kicked by a bull down a bottomless well.
"Go ahead, Denton, be a man. Say it!"
"Why," I shouted, more a challenge to an unknown god than a response to her derision, "did you pick me for this masquerade, can you tell me?" I snarled in a hot breath as I finished the question.
The answer was cold, indifferent. Kali turned and faced me. Her body seemed to snap into perfect posture, and then the words fell from her precious mouth in a hollow monotone. The weight of them almost made me collapse.
"I am Ultima Model B, manufactured by Phoeneus Incorporated, serial number 805769."
I felt a wave of nausea shoot through me. Kali stood frozen in her heels like a department store hologram. I stared back at her like an idiot, like a boy blinded by a solar eclipse. I don't know how long I stared. It was a moment devoid of linear time, but at some point, I remember seeing something which resembled a ripple of emotion surface on her face and then disappear.
The oven timer screamed like a siren, a shrill wake-up call. The veal cutlets were done. Kali snatched the chopping knife from the counter before I could fully comprehend what was happening. I wanted to stop the moment. It made no sense to me, and for a second, I thought I had lapsed into a dream state. My thinking froze, as if I were suddenly bearing the force of 10 G's and, at the same time, everything in my environment shifted into fast-forward. Then Kali was almost on top of me, reanimated like a denizen of hell, pushing the knife at my head with an overhand motion. Her face contorted with sudden rage, and her lips snarled back, revealing her pointed eye teeth. I raised my left hand and gripped her forearm to block the jab, but the inertia of her body overpowered me and the tip of the blade made a shallow puncture in my neck, just to the left of the Adam's Apple.
My response to the injury was automatic and must have come from some primal place inside I didn't even know existed. I had a hold of her knife hand near the wrist and I twisted it counter-clockwise, forcing her entire arm to twist unnaturally. Her right shoulder dipped, and I quickly slipped my left arm behind her shoulder and around the front of her neck, and then pulled her to the floor, while at the same time kicking her legs out from under her.
Kali dropped the knife as she pounded onto the tile. She landed on her back and immediately began looking around for the weapon.
I climbed on top of her and pinned her, hooking my feet under the inner portion of her thighs, the same thighs that had received the rhythm of my passion every night for the past two months, and then paused. It was all too surreal for me. Was I now supposed to beat to death the woman I had loved minutes before? She squirmed and twisted, trying to break free. I raised my right hand to slap her with the false hope that it might snap her out of her homicidal rage, and as I did, she jerked her body to her right and flipped on to her stomach. Her left hand was free, and she reached the knife, which had fallen under the table. With a back-handed twisting motion, she swung the knife around. I fell backward to avoid the blade, but she managed to slash my abdomen just below the diaphragm.
The pain of the cut registered but didn't seem critical to me. The swing brought her left arm around so that she was again on her back facing me. I kicked my legs up underneath me, so that I was in a crouching position, and then stomped on her wrist with my right foot. The knife again fell from her hand and clattered on the tile.
In an impulse which now seems completely foreign to me, I grabbed the spaghetti straps of her sundress in each of my hands, and as she leaned up and twisted away from me, crossed one, then the other, over her head. I then grabbed the two straps on either side of her neck and pulled outward with all my strength. Kali tried desperately to bring her feet up under and reach a standing position, but I stomped on the back of her calves and then stood up fully myself and pulled at the straps with such concentrated effort, I feared I would pass out.
Kali's body finally went limp. I relinquished my grip on the straps of her sundress and sank to the floor. Wiping the cold sweat from my forehead, I fought back a wave of nausea as the adrenaline surge gave way to shock. My eyes searched Kali's face, which, frozen in the expressionless twilight of death, seemed once again innocent and child-like. The thought arose in my mind that maybe I was still on the back porch, lost in a wicked waking dream. For a second, the suggestion seemed plausible. Then Kali's eye's fluttered in their sockets as if she were in a deep REM state, and I realized what was happening. After a prolonged oxygen deficit, the cognitive processor would shut down all systems to avoid damage to her synthetic organs, and then, after a timed delay, would restart.
Cursing, I pressed my thumb to the cut on my neck, which was beginning to throb with pain, and picked up the knife from the floor. I knew what I had to do. If her synthetic heart was damaged, she would be permanently shut down until it was replaced. Her eyes were fluttering consistently and her chest moved slightly, drawing a shallow breath. I straddled her waist, and raised the knife over my head with both hands and then hesitated. Something in the back of my mind made me freeze. Was I acting prematurely? Maybe I had missed something. I mentally retraced the events of the past few minutes. She had responded to the line of questions just as the manual said she would. That proved it. That proved she wasn't human. But still, something didn't add up.
As I was trying to pinpoint the error in my logic, Kali opened her eyes. I flinched, and immediately brought the knife down, aiming for the right edge of her breastbone. Kali's eyes opened wide with terror, and then squeezed shut as the blade penetrated her chest.
***
That evening I sat in my study, the farthest room in the house from the kitchen, and tried to make sense of the past two months of my life. The shock had slowly subsided into an overwhelming grief for what had transpired, but eventually, the analytical part of my brain reemerged, and I began to question everything about my relationship with Kali.
As the bottle of Glenlivet on my desk went from half-full to half-empty, I identified the fundamental question that needed to be answered. Who would benefit if I were living with a synthetic that I genuinely believed was human? Who had the motive to plant her in my house? Then it all came to me. HelixCorp was the chief rival of InterSol, the mining company I had a consulting contract with for the past two years. If HelixCorp had a plant in my house, a walking, talking listening device, then they had access to sensitive information regarding when and where their chief competitor was experiencing systems failures. They could then capitalize on this knowledge by allocating resources to those sectors of the galaxy and negotiating new contracts with InterSol's frustrated customers. And because of the recent service tariff deregulation, do it all legally.
I remembered the night on Oasis-C when I first met Kali. She invited me back to her room. She prevented me from walking out that night with a convincing emotional display. She had accused me of playing her, but I was the one who had been played. Cleverly played, but all the same, I was the fool.
I didn't sleep for three days after Kali's death. I felt angry and defeated. I felt like a kid who had indulged in some selfish excursion at the expense of his own common sense. The voice in my head, that cynical, uncompromising voice of doubt had been right all along. And it made sense to me now -- because it spoke the truth, regardless of the consequences. And that realization made me see that voice as an ally.
A week later, I received the autopsy report on Kali. It was standard procedure to perform autopsies on all high-level synthetics that attempted to harm humans. The cause of the malfunction had to be documented for legal purposes. As I skimmed the first page of the report, trying to decipher the medical jargon, I was not surprised to find that a transmitting beacon had been implanted in Kali's maxillary sinus cavity which was capable of sending long-range signals, presumably to HelixCorp. But as I read on, I was shocked to find that the report referred to her as human. Her brain had contained conspicuous amounts of a precursor chemical used, on Earth, in a drug medley which aided in the neuro-reprogramming of high-level primates. The drug combination was used to modify the brain function of apes to enable them to routinely perform certain occupational tasks. In Kali's case, it was used to program her into believing she was an Ultima Model B.
The realization of what I had done rushed over me like a solar windstorm. I knew now the reason I had hesitated before ending her life. Something in me, on an unconscious level, had known she was human. I had failed to take into account that if her theory was true, if she was a human who had been neuro-chemically programmed into believing she was a synthetic that thought it was human, then why wouldn't her response to the verbal commands hold true to the technical documentation? In fact, it would be extremely necessary, if all the brain tampering had been done by Phoeneus Corporation. At the same time, if she had been an Ultima Model B, she could not have exhibited violent action after being verbally prompted to reach a ready-state for reprogramming.
In the days that followed, the police traced Kali's prints to a woman who went missing the year before in U.F.C Brazil, a schoolteacher named Kate Windsor. She held degrees in education and anthropology, and had published a book on the universal mythology of indigenous cultures. She had been doing volunteer work in an area which had been ravaged by guerilla warfare at the time of her disappearance. This revelation made me sick with rage, that a woman of her caliber was ruined, her life tossed away like garbage, for the profit of the power-elite. But what made me even sicker is that I failed to see the reality of the situation. I failed to listen to the sound of truth.
***
It has been over a year now since Kali's death. I have relentlessly investigated Phoeneus Corporation, trying to discover whether Kali's was a singular case, or if all, or a significant number, of the Model B line were neuro-chemically programmed humans. So far it is still a mystery to me. However, I was able to find a covert link between HelixCorp and Phoeneus Corporation. Both are owned by a large conglomerate headquartered in the Bootean system which is not required by Earth law to disclose any of its holdings or interests.
I tried to go to the media with my story, but because I had nothing but speculation and theory, they refused to cover it. Now I know how Kali must have felt. Lately, something inside me has been telling me that it's time to end my career and start teaching. Maybe do some volunteer work. I am trying to listen to that voice. Though I spent my entire career paying attention to detail, to subtle connections, I never applied that practice to my life.
I now realize that if I had only had enough
faith to heed that momentary hesitation before I brought the knife
down, my life would have been incomprehensibly different. When I
think of Kali now, I think about the importance of seeing things for
what they really are. Even her name, which she chose for herself on
Oasis-C, had been a clue, a gift from her, that pointed to the truth
of what she had become -- Kali, ancient east Indian goddess, the
Black One, the nexus of the dualistic power that resides in all
women, the beautiful, horrible, wonderful, life-giving, life-taking
mother.
Story copyright © 1998 Dan Dobbs <dhammond@dww.net>
Artwork "Alien Repairs" copyright © 1998 Martin Murphy <m.murphy@netcom.ca>
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