‘Well anyway, given a few more years, then we could have been turning them out at a rate of a strand month, and with as little as six – or even three – months in each frame.’
She was agog, ‘So that would be twelve new strands initiated a year, and all stages of childhood development conducted in... fifteen months?’
He nodded, ‘We were getting quick, and they were getting better. By the time of Ellie and Danny we had things going so well. Our processes were smooth, and each frame was sitting there ready-built for them to move into.
‘And just like any hardware or software developer, we were constantly evolving, making the systems harder, faster, more capacious. I’m talking processors now; electricals. Our first concern had been with getting them up to speed with humans. But by the time of Danny and Ellie’s education, we had them sitting Oxford entrance papers.’
‘They’d have gotten into Oxford?’
‘And gotten Firsts – three months later Ellie passed a mock PHD.’
‘And how old were they then?’
‘Ten or fifteen in body, about two in duration.’
‘Duration... you mean life?’
‘Yes.’
‘They developed so quickly.’
‘Far outstripping us, yes. It seemed we were pulling them out of one childhood frame as quickly as we were putting them into the next. In fact, the only thing stopping the last pair growing quicker was getting Anna and Bradley out of each frame soon enough.
‘By the end, with all of them as adults, and each of them in the one unique final body we would build them, they seemed about as grown up as each other. One of the great things about them, though, was that they formed their own personalities.
‘Anna was a sweet girl, though shy and quiet, always wanting reassurance. And as soon as Ellie was the same age as her, you’d have though Ellie was the elder sister.
‘Bradley was a simple soul, straightforward, and after Anna I confess that was a relief. Though, like his sister, he was less academically inclined than some of the others would be, perhaps because he’d spent his early days with less processing power (though still with more than us). Though they were equally capable by the end. Ultimately it came down to personality.’
‘Personality?’ asked Eris. ‘Even after making them all the same?’
‘But how we act and what we react to are completely down to us. How would you like it if God came booming through the clouds, “Miss Eris, I built you to like popcorn, table-tennis and punk rock.” And you’d shout back, “I know I do. But those are my passions, not yours!”’
She smiled, ‘And more importantly, Doctor, how did you know I liked popcorn?’
‘A lucky guess. But yes, dear Bradley; really the calmest of them all.’
‘Christopher we’ve covered. And the last two?’
‘The jewels in our crown. Although we built Ellie first, Danny wasn’t far behind, and they almost seemed like twins. We gave them each blonde hair to add to the effect, and to give them their own look.
‘Ellie was the sharpest of the lot, a scientist in the mould of her creators. I had such dreams for her. While Danny was just as quick but not as committed. He seemed to favour nature. I think he might have been an artist.’
(Eris didn’t remind Beck that Danny’s love of nature most likely led to his injury in the rockfall.)
‘You see,’ continued Beck, ‘Danny and Ellie were the first ones not entirely unique: they were the first ones to reuse frames, and the first not to be the first at something – not the first artif ever, or the first girl, or the first boy; or the first of a different template, like Christopher. And there was something normalising in that, like any human feels.’
‘How so?’
‘Well, for all our individuality, we follow a pattern laid down for millennia. To be the first human to break with some part of that pattern – to be immortal, or to age too quickly, or too slowly, or be twice as tall, or read minds – would be terrifying, wouldn’t it?’
Beck continued, as if talking of his own children,
‘I have a memory of one of the “field trips” Mrs Winters would take them on into the local towns – never the same town after one of them had “aged” though. She would tell anyone who asked that she was the nanny for several families, and that the children’s parents were holidaying or out of the area. And behind her, a gaggle of little boys and girls of all ages and hair-colours followed. All so polite, so neat in the outfits she had bought for them.
‘Anna was ten by this particular occasion, but it was five-year-old Ellie who was pointing things out in shop-windows and leading her sister around. Bradley wanted to try out the bikes in the toy shop, as that was what we’d promised him when he took the next step up. While little Danny was just looking at the town around him, taking everything in.
‘Christopher had his own series of frames, so he could be the same age as Bradley. Though being slightly taller, he looked older than ten, and already wore an adult bearing. You might say “old before his time”. He too was watching his surroundings, but not like Danny was. No, to Christopher all had to be memorised and understood.’
‘A little spy even then?’
‘He took it very seriously.’
‘And did he ever start his adult work?’
‘You mean, did the CIA ever come back for him? Not as far as I know. And anyway, aren’t we on their side? If the US had some robotic super-spy, then wouldn’t our guys know about it?’
‘I’d like to think so,’ answered Eris.
Chapter 30 – Tombstone
The Jaguar had seemed stuck at the same traffic lights for five minutes. So long in fact that Charlie the driver was having to shoo-away a man with a squeegee wanting to clean the windows for a tip.
‘He’s got soap over everything,’ he said, getting back in after surveying the damage. ‘I’m going to have to polish her down when I get to the garage.’
Beck observed all of this through the glass partition. Though was interrupted by Eris asking him,
‘So, the final days.’
‘Yes,’ resumed Beck. ‘Well, they were all in adult frames by then, luckily for them. I would imagine it would be harder to live an independent life as a ten or fifteen-year-old, no matter how clever you are. Like that child vampire in the Anne Rice books.’
‘And you had no more “strands” in preparation? Why was that?’
‘Well, for all our efficiency at making them, we also needed to take stock, check the data and see how they were getting on. There was also the issue of resources. Springfields was only so big. And though remote, we were picking up notice in the towns. Maybe it was just my suspicions, but I was seeing the looks the family got on their trips, or when people passed by the house.
‘Schmidt and I would never accompany them on the field trips, as that would make it even harder to explain away our group structure. But we would be in the town anyway, having a drink or meal, and watching the children’s interactions with shopkeepers, etcetera.
‘Throughout the five years of Springfields, my biggest fear was Education Services turning up and asking the children’s names and ages and whether they attended school. Amazing, really, that none did. But then they jumped up in ages so fast that even if someone saw us in town or passed the house often, then they would probably think they were different groups of children.
‘And Mrs Winters kept her story so well, of rich children boarding with her as their parents travelled, or whilst between schools; and this again explained the changing roster.
‘But as they got older it got easier. They could travel alone or in pairs, and be more independent, mingle easily. So I think we had a sense that, whatever the future of the project, we needed to move them on to their own lives and close down Springfields.’
‘What future did the five they think had?’
‘I think they thought it was bright. And as we saw what a great group of young people they were turning out to be, then I think that the Professor and
Mrs Winters and I generally felt just as positive, and that at some point we’d break it...’
‘Break what?’
‘The secret!’
‘That didn’t scare the five?’
‘I think they hoped to be a sensation. They were young, and saw uniqueness as something to be treasured.’
‘Life can disabuse us of that notion.’
‘And their sheer capacity made them wise, and they understood as well as us.’
‘Understood what?’
‘That there was only one way to run a project like ours, and that was to start in secret, and then to wow the world with it. Since our initial brainstorms Schmidt and I had known, without ever needing to say it, that we would never have got what we wanted to do past a University committee: it was too radical, too fearful. It would have been shut down.’
She asked him, ‘And, Doctor Beck, should you ever have found yourself serving on such a committee, then how would such a project sound to you?’
‘Like the stuff of wild-brained men who couldn’t believe the amazing situation they had found themselves in.’
Was Beck saying too much? He didn’t know, and it was all conjecture anyway. And so he went on,
‘But I don’t regret it. Not for a day, not even after all the trouble.’
And it had been trouble – it shamed him now, but as he looked at his younger self in his mind’s eye, and at the Professor, so senior and respected by all who knew him, Beck met their wide-eyed look with one of his own, telling Eris,
‘It felt like being initiated into the greatest secret in the world.’
‘And now?’
‘And now it makes me go feverish just at the thought of it, a mingling of that first excitement, with an... unprocessable shame at the lies I ended up telling, at the crisis we caused.’
‘But still the question,’ asked Eris. ‘The question I can’t shake. You claim you didn’t know your ultimate aim when first pairing with Schmidt?’
Beck answered rhetorically, ‘Is it possible for people to be heading down a road and not know it? It was all such a rush, but was the greatest time of my life. The luck of a youngster to have new ground to move into. A time never to be repeated. On my tombstone, when I am gone and no one cares any more, and secrets can be spoken, it will say, “He created seven lives.” – and those will be my two boys, and the five strands.’
‘How did it end for you?’
‘As I say, I came into work one Monday morning, and two men not unlike your Sergeant Forrest were waiting for me. I’d spent the weekend with my family, so hadn’t been to Springfields for days. Lord knows how long the others had known for, but they were long gone. And even though I’m talking to you now, I’m glad they got away.’
‘Even though that means they didn’t tell you?’
‘Even though.’
‘And you still don’t feel yourself sacrificial?’
The faint whirr of the glass partition coming down saved Beck from answering that,
‘We’ve cleared the main road now, Miss,’ advised their driver. ‘We’ll be at the University in five minutes.’
‘Thank you,’ she replied, and settled back in her leather seat.
Chapter 31 – A Man and a Woman
‘Where to then, ma’am?’ asked Sergeant Forrest while the partition was still lowered.
Eris looked at Beck for instructions, he saying to Forrest,
‘Just keep going towards the campus complex. It’s the glass building in front; you can’t miss it.’
She enquired, ‘You’re not going to tell us which room?’
‘Would you, if you were me?’
‘No, I suppose not.’
Mingled with her relief at nearing their destination, Eris also felt a panic – that her chance to question Beck was almost over. Whatever else was coming, if this lead turned out to be something, then she would have to concentrate on that. If it was to peter out to nothing, then Beck would lose his bargaining chip and begin to slip away from her. And if he turned out to be lying to her, then it was all over anyway.
But she had these final moments, turning to ask,
‘So what about consciousness?’
‘What of it?’
‘How did you make them conscious?’
Beck smiled in the way that infuriated her, ‘You’re asking the wrong question.’
‘Ah, come on, don’t start getting all mysterious like one of those Tibetan monks, the possessor of a great truth understandable only by the initiated. You’re surely not still trying to hang on to technical secrets?’
‘No, because it isn’t technical, and it isn’t a secret.’
‘Gah!’
He answered, still smiling, ‘Sorry, I’m not trying to be mysterious. Look, it helps not to think of consciousness as this spooky soulful thing that happens in our heads. Think of it instead as just the transfer of energy – an atom is “aware” of another atom because it bumps into it. And so the stone is conscious of being kicked by the foot, the lily-pad conscious of the frog landing on it – energy being transferred from one atom or group of atoms to another.
‘So all the atoms that make up a human body are conscious of what’s happening to them individually. And through the sensory pathways of the nervous system, the brain can be conscious of the whole person – the energy of a ball caught in the hand, and of light-beams caught in the eye, and of sound-waves in the ear, all fired down the synapses and brought together in the brain.
‘Add to that the electrical impulses being received from the memory, thoughts and narrative voice that we spoke about, and you’ve got the whole caboodle – we’re conscious of it all as the transfer of electrical energy.’
He caught himself, ‘I’m sorry, I can ramble on. But to think of consciousness as a switch in the artifs’ heads is wrong. Every atom that went into making them was conscious before we began; just as every atom that went into making you was conscious before your parents began.’
The glass partition was still lowered, and Sergeant Forrest guffawed from the passenger seat, before being halting by his mistress’s visual rebuke.
Eris though was on a role, and soon recovered her composure. Though she didn’t close the screen – having a witness now, she wanted to keep them,
‘Well okay then, clever Doctor: male and female. How did you untie the knot that’s kept the poets busy for centuries?’
Beck smiled, though was cut off before he could begin.
‘And no flowery theorising this time!’
‘No, ma’am,’ answered Beck mock-formally. Sergeant Forrest was now eating out of his hand, beaming away as he listened from the front seat.
As they neared the University, Beck found he could suddenly breathe. His old faculties were returning, as if the parts of his brain were being plugged back in, like HAL 9000 in reverse. He had Sergeant Forrest in the bag – a man led by a woman, few male colleagues perhaps, no room for banter or fellowship. Offer him some male bonding, and Beck would be able to worry about him so much less.
But what of Forrest’s boss?
In her sudden flurry of questions, Eris was revealing to Beck what she had previously hidden behind professional interest – and that was a huge personal fascination in the robots themselves.
And Beck had a further intuition – that her questions were more about herself than any robot. In her mind, he and Schmidt had replicated her, and so understood her. And who didn’t want to be understood?
All Beck had to do was keeping dropping her breadcrumbs.
Before he could get started on his latest answer though, Charlie the driver had arrived at campus. Sergeant Forrest’s window opened quietly, and his police badge got them past the security booth. Charlie saw large hospital-style direction arrows in front of him, and asked,
‘So do we need the Heidegger Hall or Copernicus Campus?’
‘Neither,’ answered Beck. ‘Just go straight on.’
So they did so, and when they reached the building at the
end of the carpark, Charlie announced from its sign,
‘Here we are, The Darwin Department of Evolutionary Sciences.’
‘It wasn’t called that in my day,’ muttered Beck.
Eris looked at him scornfully, ‘What, you don’t think some academic scandal might have caused them to want to change the name?’ She grimaced, ‘Darwin, I could have guessed that and had the place locked-down half an hour ago.’
‘Right, we’re here. Let’s do this.’ Beck jumped up and out of the door, which had automatically unlocked itself.
‘But wait,’ called Eris, holding back for all manner of reasons. ‘You can’t go. There are so many questions.’
‘Do you want to have this mechanical proof or not?’
The dynamic had entirely shifted. He was now running things, with her scrambling in his wake. And it had to be like this, he needed the edge on his side. He knew it had to be now, and that he had only one chance, and that her retribution would be swift.
‘Okay then,’ called Beck from the carpark, as she slid across the back seat to leave by his door and so keep him in view. ‘What do you want to know?’
He continued to back toward the Faculty door, making it plain to her that this was her last chance. What was there left to know? How to form it into one final question, what with everything swirling around her head?
‘Okay,’ she remembered their interrupted conversation. ‘What about boys and girls?’
‘I assure you, each were perfectly proportioned.’
‘But that’s their bodies. What about their minds? Are our minds different?’
Beck noted her question – not ‘their’ minds but ‘our’ minds. He answered her, his back almost at the door,
‘Our minds, eh? Do you know what? We built them just the same.’
And with that he leaned into the swinging door. He remembered so well – as it opened, the receptionist stood up at her desk, spilling her coffee,
‘Doctor Beck. I never thought I’d see the day.’
‘Geraldine, dear woman.’ He’d always had a thing for receptionists, politeness being in their job description.
‘Do... do the Directors know you’re back?’ she asked, shakily.
‘No, and I think we need to keep it that way, if it’s up to our friends here?’
Beck looked to the pair trailing in his wake. Sergeant Forrest flashed Geraldine his police badge, while Eris didn’t even acknowledge her.