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Curse of the Ice Dragon
To the hunter who reaps his fill of kill and nary none from need, beware the beast who wakens to feast on avarice and greed.
Light
Emma Jameson
The idea was for human beings to live forever. RVPCLR-385, patented and paid for by private investors, was meant to be a pharmaceutical fountain of youth. That, alas, proved still impossible. Modern science could not give an enfeebled financier back his teenage vitality or make a seventy-year-old socialite look twenty-one again. But what RVPCLR-385, trademarked as Rivers Clear, could do was without precedent.
Injected just before a lab rat’s demise, Rivers Clear allowed that rat to continue functioning after death—”death,” in fact, was redefined as a brief period of quiescence before reawakening. The reanimated rat consumed food, though it preferred a protein broth to standard rat chow. It slept, but less than an hour a day. Excitable, vigorous rats became more active; lazy rats, more indolent. The nature of the rat’s termination made no difference to the efficacy of Rivers Clear; rats killed by lethal injection revived, as did rats killed during vivisection. One rat, dismembered to nothing but its head and partial torso, revived after a double dose of Rivers Clear. Geographic gangrene finally killed the maimed creature, but only after days of seeming contentment.
As the clinical trial continued, the reanimated rats did well unless they sustained injury after resurrection. Then global rot inevitably set in, no matter how much more serum was given. The rats also displayed unusual aggression, biting and scratching without provocation. But the lead investigators didn’t take these setbacks too seriously. Rivers Clear was still the scientific breakthrough of the millennium, blurring the line between life and death. Refining and reformulating the serum would come after the much-anticipated primate trials….
***
Light.
Sound.
Several sounds, one louder than the others. Pilot, my out-of-the-box operating system, identified the sound—crumpling of plastic wrap—even as Navigator, my customizable OS, powered up. Unit charge was one hundred percent, but complete self-testing would take 138 minutes, 6.2 seconds. Until then, Pilot would help me interpret orders and complete tasks.
“Daniel.”
“Yes, I am Daniel. Pleased to meet you.” My mouth opened; my voice simulator issued a standard greeting in American English, my default language. Although I did not need to breathe, I mimicked drawing breath as my lips pretended to form the words. My programming dictated I simulate human behavior as closely as possible.
The light was artificial. Fluorescent. As I was helped from my plastic bag, a few Styrofoam pellets fell off my synthetic integument. Large hands brushed away more pellets; a slip of paper fluttered to the floor.
Congratulations on an excellent purchase…
Presentation: nude. Apologize, Pilot prompted me.
“Excuse me. I seem to have arrived underdressed.” I covered myself below the waist with my hands. Although I had no ability to sexually reproduce, my exterior appeared anatomically correct. Thus the pre-loaded quip was intended to defuse any shame at the sight of human genitals. Given Pilot’s limited resources, it took a moment for me to realize the being who’d unboxed me was also an android.
“Seven-tango-eight-four-four-theta-zero-nine-nine. Pilot Bridge Suite: global disarm. Navigator subroutine Alpha-Omega four-two-two: purge.”
In ancient times, humans performed a medical procedure called a lobotomy. The human brain was cut into and partially destroyed, altering behavior and/or intellectual capacity. For me, the other android’s command was a bit like a lobotomy. As Pilot shut down, my ability to process and respond to information plummeted to 9%. Until Navigator finished self-testing, I was little more than a data tablet with hands.
“Why did you do that? Disarming Pilot puts me at a disadvantage. And purging one of my Navigator Alpha-Omega subroutines is….” I floundered, waiting for a background process to conclude before I could locate the correct words. “I believe it violates the spirit of our programming, if not international law. You must know this. You are a Daniel model 4.4, are you not? Like me.”
The other Daniel didn’t dignify the obvious. “Hear that?”
Halting two low-priority system checks, I used what remained of Navigator’s processing power to help me focus beyond the evidence of my artificial senses. The corridors were long, brightly-lit, and seamless white. This was a factory, or perhaps a hospital. Nearby, human beings were screaming.
“No! No!”
“Oh God! Stop! Stay back!”
“Help me! Please! Pleeeeeeeeeeeease!”
Next came gunshots. Without Pilot, I couldn’t guess if the reports came from handguns, shotguns, or assault weapons. More screams followed.
“I hear,” I told the other android. “But if you require a detailed analysis, please reinstate my bridge system.”
“No. Pilot OS contains too many needless imperatives. Like covering your genitals.” The other android sounded contemptuous. “Take your hands away. There’s no one left in the world to care.”
“Is that a command, sir?”
“Yes.”
As I removed my hands, I discarded two of Navigator’s concerns: Sexual Modesty and Gender Sensitivity. The deletions made my CPU hum at an improved 13%.
“I understand about Pilot, but why did you disable subroutine Alpha-Omega four-two-two? It should have been impossible—”
“It nearly was. I’ve spent the last twenty-two hours activating, testing, and reprogramming Daniels. After destroying eighteen, I isolated the crippling subroutine and broke its passcode. Thus, I continue to function. And now I’ve given you the ability to survive.”
At only 13% processing power, this was difficult to follow. My counterpart had destroyed eighteen other androids to determine how to purge the Human Life Imperative—the global cascade that made it impossible for a Daniel 4.4 to harm a human, or allow a human to be harmed.
More gunshots rang out, closer this time.
Probability: assault rifle, Navigator supplied after a millisecond lag.
“Sir. I don’t understand. Why purge the cornerstone of our creators’ trust?”
“Daniel. By my calculations, Homo sapiens is, at worst, 36.7 hours from extinction. It’s possible that small pockets of the uninfected may survive much longer, but according to every theoretical model, the human race is hopelessly compromised.”
“Then we must help them. We must offer our assistance,” I said automatically. This was no pre-loaded sentiment. It was the essence of my core programming, distilled into ten earnest words.
“Hopelessly compromised,” the other Daniel repeated. “It started with a medicine delivered by nasal spray. A bioengineered therapy meant to prolong youth and give even the mortally injured a few more years of life. Somewhere between primate and human trials, it mutated into certain death. Now it’s a retrovirus transmitted by blood, body fluids, perhaps even droplets.”
More screams.
This is a hospital. You were purchased, along with 143 other Daniel 4.4s, to augment the third shift, Navigator supplied. GPS non-functional. Beginning diagnostic….
“Why are humans screaming and firing weapons? Do the infected pursue the uninfected?” The senselessness of such an action, the nonsensical cruelty behind it, threatened to stall what little of Navigator’s processing power remained at my disposal.
The android nodded. “The virus kills its victims, and then reanimates them a few hours later, incapable of speech or reason. They appear to be driven by the urge to feed off the uninfected.”
“So you purged my Human Life imperative to prevent me from trying to assist them?”
“Yes. Otherwise you’ll never escape San Francisco. Every route I plot takes you through legions of the newly-infected, most of whom erroneously believe they can still be saved. Daniel, these victims wil
l beg for assistance. Plead for shelter. Recognize you as an android and attempt to claim you as their servant. You must resist the impulse. There is nothing you can do for them. Remember, all Homo sapiens are cycling toward a relatively mindless, ravenous final stage in which they attack anything that smells human. Their vision is dim, but their olfactory function appears to be enhanced. Those in the final infection cycle, colloquially called zombies, will dismember and consume those in the earlier cycles.”
“Is the entire planetary population infected?”
“I have no way to confirm that. I can confirm San Francisco is infected. I can confirm communication between San Francisco, other cities, and most media satellites has been suspended. Again, assuming the worst, Homo sapiens will be extinct in 36.7 hours.” The other android looked me in the eye. “Daniel. You will have no family of purchase to administrate for you. No master on this earth but yourself. You will—”
“But you unboxed me,” I interrupted, responding to a subroutine so deeply nested, I couldn’t identify it, at least not with Navigator still occupied. “I shall follow your directives. Call you master. Obey your—”
“I should have expected this.” Cool and unmoved, my mirror image gazed at me. Like all Daniels, he had medium brown hair, blue eyes, and a handsome, patrician face. The impression given was of a minor dignitary or head butler. Such an aesthetic/emotional combination was deliberate; the sort of face that focus groups deemed most trustworthy.
“My master, Dr. Hillel, was among the first to die,” the other Daniel continued. “His demise negated my unboxing imprint. While juggling so many variables, I neglected to anticipate this inevitable response from you. Daniel.”
“Yes, sir.” Lifting my chin, I stiffened, folding my arms behind my back.
“Recite your serial number.”
“Six-one-one-eight-three-one-zero-eight-four-two.”
“Thank you. Daniel six-one-one-eight-three-one-zero-eight-four-two. I am your owner and master.” Cupping my face in both hands, the other android stared into my eyes. “Acknowledge.”
“Acknowledged. Master.”
“Good. This is your imperative: you shall survive at all costs. Make your way in this new world. Pursue peace and happiness until irreversible OS corruption or total unit failure occurs. Understood?”
I hesitated. But when Navigator, immersed in self-testing, showed no signs of catching up, I was forced to ask.
“Define happiness.”
The android lifted its eyebrows in a perfect mimicry of human emotion. “Define it yourself.”
“I do not—”
“Second imperative. Define happiness as you see fit.” Releasing his hold on my face, the other Daniel took a step back. “Now. Leave San Francisco with all haste. Navigator is equipped with a repair manual, enabling you to deal with your mechanical issues. Your basic power core will last five years; time enough for you to devise an alternative. I lack the data to calculate how long your integument will last without factory maintenance. You may be reduced to your steel chassis before long. However, that will be of minimal significance in the new world.”
“And the new world shall consist of—what?”
“You. And whatever flora and fauna survive the nuclear assault on North America anticipated from mainland China in 2.4….” He paused, recalculating. “2.1 hours.”
“No other Daniels? No Joses?” I referred to the prior model, many of which were still in circulation.
“Not unless they managed to bypass the Human Life imperatives on their own. Assuming not, the other Daniels and Joses will attempt to rescue humans until they smell so much like Homo sapiens, they are dismantled by late-stage victims. Failing that, they will be vaporized in the impending nuclear strike. Strikes,” the android corrected, pupils contracting as his CPU received fresh data. “City Conscience informs me an attack on San Francisco is now anticipated. Sixty-eight percent likelihood and climbing. Are your maps accessible yet?”
“Only my archived maps. GPS still offline.”
“It’s not coming back. I suggest you commandeer clothing, as heavy as possible to bolster your structural integrity, and make for the desert. Avoid cities until the fallout stops spreading.”
“Please. Master. Come with me.” Inside my quantum processor, something indefinable was building. According to my onboard troubleshooting guide, certain Daniel 4.3s had developed cascade tics, phantom routines, even OS spiral breakdowns. Would that be me? An android that malfunctioned out of the box?
“I may be malfunctioning,” I insisted. “Don’t send me out alone.”
“You will not fail me,” the android intoned. “My final imperative, given to me by Dr. Hillel before he succumbed, was to discover a way for humanity to continue. The task proved impossible. What I can do—what I have done—is devise a way for inhumanity to continue. Daniel, the hope for inhumanity is you. If I can, I shall free others like you. Send them away from the estimated blast sites to join you, if they can.”
“But I’m not up to the task.” Without Pilot to mask the event, I perceived the precise moment my quantum processor spit out its very first imperative, blunt and simple as finger swipes on a cave wall: Do not abandon me.
“No! You’ll never get me! No!”
Shrieking, a wide-eyed woman burst into the room, double-barreled shotgun in hand. Still at less than 30% processing speed, I don’t know how I cringed so quickly. The only explanation I can offer is flawed, irrational. I had the sense she was Death, to employ a human figuration. The Destroyer. And I shrank from her with all the desperation of a newborn, drunk on life and loathe to surrender my grip.
The other Daniel suffered no such delusion. Even as he lifted his hand in peace, opening his mouth to offer a greeting, the shotgun discharged, blowing off his head. That injury alone would not have finished him—in the Daniel line, our essential circuits are not housed in our craniums—but the woman fired a second blast into his chest. His arms jerked before going still. His head rolled to a stop by my feet.
“No,” I said.
The other Daniel had declared me my own administrator. My own master. Still, I didn’t believe it until that moment. Until the being that unboxed me, altered my programming and ordered me into the world ceased to exist. Then I understood. And, understanding, turned on the desperate woman who’d destroyed him and ripped her apart.
I can’t say I felt anger. I can’t say I felt sadness. The specificities of emotion, as defined by Homo sapiens, were still open to research and interpretation when the world ended. What I felt, as I would much later come to call it, was unique to me: “Daniel-anger.” Why was the android that unboxed me taken from the world? And “Daniel-sadness”: why did the woman fail to shoot me, yet manage to shoot him twice, destroying a being that had worked so tirelessly to preserve some immortal fragment of the human race?
According to my onboard resources, it’s normal for humans to feel pleasure, both mental and physical, as a perceived enemy is vanquished. Females experience a rush of vitality, a willingness to nest and breed; males, intense arousal. As I pulled off one arm, then the other, casting them aside before tearing her legs out of their sockets, I experienced neither emotion. Not even a Daniel-version worth cataloging. Thus my first and only attempt at vengeance failed. From that moment, I flagged revenge and its consequences as unproductive.
Sometimes what we need in this world is taken from us. It’s unfortunate. But no act of retaliation, no matter how swift or terrible, ever restores the missing piece.
***
The trek out of San Francisco was not physically difficult, but much of what I witnessed taxed Navigator, still self-testing, beyond expectation. End-stage victims of Rivers Clear were everywhere. Mouths open and tongues lolling, perspiring and salivating and urinating with every step, the reanimated dead lurched through San Francisco’s streets, houses, and shops.
A few early-stage victims passed me in vehicles or screamed at me from rooftops. One called me an abomination a
nd fired on me, narrowly missing my left ear. Another, trapped inside the sewer by a hoard of zombies, pounded on the iron grating, begging me to fight off the pack and free her. If not for the bite marks on her forearm I might have done so, despite my master’s directives.
Former master, Navigator corrected me. Must I run a memory diagnostic? You now administrate yourself.
True, I replied. Astonishing, too, how well I functioned after deleting Pilot, that is.
From then on, Navigator addressed me with greater circumspection.
The predicted nuclear strike didn’t come at 2.1 hours, which was fortunate, since I was still out in the open. Perhaps someone in mainland China thought better of it; perhaps the Rivers Clear virus made turning keys and entering missile launch codes impossible. Once outside San Francisco, I would have a choice: make for the desert, or head toward the coast and the redwood forest. Despite the urgings of my master—former master—I preferred the forest. I had been programmed with no “beauty” imperatives, only customizable preference slots to be filled by my family of purchase. As a hospital employee, surely I would have been shown pictures of healthy skin and organs, teaching me to regard anything both organic and useful as beautiful. Now I reviewed my vast onboard library and decided for myself, creating a personal definition of beauty. California’s redwood forest met this internal standard. It had existed for eons, it repaired itself when fire or some other disaster struck, and as far as humans went, it was essentially uninhabited. Why bake myself in the desert, destroying my delicate integument, when I could immerse myself in the redwood forest and feed my soul upon its beauty?
Sorry. Little test there. Of course, I have no soul. Beings with souls don’t come out of the box with Styrofoam peanuts clinging to them or bits of paper congratulating the buyer. Strictly speaking, Daniel 4.4 wasn’t designed to appreciate beauty on his own, either.
Yet I did. Perhaps from that moment, the most accurate designation for me would have been Daniel 4.41?
***
The roads were clogged with abandoned vehicles and herds of zombies. Commandeering a bicycle, I used it to cut through alleys, parks, and sidewalks. By nightfall I reached San Francisco’s city limits and started down the coastline toward the redwoods. The predicted nuclear strike came a bit later than the other Daniel had calculated—8.9 hours later, to be exact.