Gabriel’s Watch - Book One: The Scrapman Trilogy (21 page)

“You have to sort through seven people’s memories?” Alice asked.

Zeke shook its head. “Scott Stratford is more dominant than the others. I believe he’s my primary foundation.”

“Wow,” I said. “So they managed to perfect artificial intelligence and artificial schizophrenia all at once?”

Alice jabbed me hard in the ribs. “Not schizophrenia,” she corrected, “more like ... robotic reincarnation.”

“Oh well,” I shrugged, “agree to disagree.”

“And it’s not a glitch, Zeke,” Alice added. “Don’t think of it like that. Think of it more as ... a gift. Whatever memories were strong enough to make it through that process must have been significant to him.” Alice clasped her hands together and brought them to her chest. “You should feel honored, Zeke.”

The robot nodded, then bowed its head, appearing to be lost in thought.

“But don’t hurt yourself there, big guy,” I added facetiously.

After most every bone had been licked clean, and we’d exhausted our meat supply to the point of our lunch rations, we made our way back down to the cavern again. The day proved to be a normal one. I eventually returned to the surface to check on a few photo-eyes and proximity switches—all part of a seemingly ancient security system, one that was hardly necessary anymore—while Alice stayed below decks, cleaning out the filters in our water purification system.

It was monotonous work, but highly important, nonetheless. I find that the art of survival is, by right, a repetitive one; but it’s our daily schedules, habits, and routines that not only keep us safe, but most importantly, keep us sane.

There’s a hefty list of planned maintenance, performed daily, weekly, monthly, and even annually. Along with every separate piece of machinery or equipment, there also comes an additional set of specifications to follow.

Alice and I worked on until the afternoon as Zeke kept mostly to itself. I watched it walk the cavern, antenna raised, chirping and buzzing in one of its many digital conversations with Arcturus, a conversation that I was sure Alice and I would be privy to soon enough.

“What’s up with him?” I asked her.

She smiled back, “Lover’s quarrel.” And then, for lack of a better description, we giggled like schoolgirls.

After a few poor attempts to beat her at chess, the two of us relaxed and talked well on to nightfall. That was when I yawned, stretched an arm toward the ceiling, and announced my desire to retire for the evening. I left Alice and Zeke to do as they pleased, but given her narcoleptic tendencies, I was positive she’d find a way to engage the kinetic entity in one activity or another.

Just as I’d slipped within my covers, closed my eyes to the world, and kept my breathing light and steady, I heard Alice and Zeke in a quiet conversion of stellar minds. I attempted to listen, recognizing a word here and a phrase there, right up until my focus was stolen by the blackish haze that is my dreams—or lack thereof, I suppose.

I arose the next morning to an unfamiliar sound—a precarious scratching or scraping resonating from the workbench area. Turning the corner I expected to find Alice busily engaged in her next mechanical marvel, but found Zeke instead, sitting on a stool with both its elbows propped up on the table.

The noise I’d heard was coming from the 45 the robot had balanced barrel-down on the workbench, spinning it clockwise with its right hand while keeping the weapon upright in its elliptical rotation with an index finger extended to the gun’s backside. Zeke did not look up at me when I entered the room, staying transfixed to the spinning weapon, and giving it an additional thrust every several seconds.

“You okay?” I interrupted, but the machine still did not acknowledge me. “Scraps?” I clapped my hands. “Snap out of it, Buddy.”

But still the weapon spun.

“Jessica Trumble,” the machine said finally.

“Who?”

“Jessica Trumble,” it repeated.

“Is that another psyche in your chimera?”

“No,” Zeke shook its head, “she’s just a pretty girl.”

I bent backwards, leaving my feet where they were, sticking my head into the hallway. “Alice,” I called, “could you come out here, please?”

“Scott thought she was the prettiest girl in school,” Zeke continued.

“Alice, hurry please.”

“So Scott asked her to the dance—she said yes. Jessica looked beautiful that day. He was having such a good time, until ... ”

Zeke stopped spinning the weapon, released its hands and let the 45 fall with a solid “clank.”

“Until ... ” it continued, “he caught her kissing another boy by the soda machines.”

Zeke looked up at me, placing its hand to its chest. “He felt it first here,” the machine said, “like he was suffocating, then it rose here.” The robot placed its hand at the back of its neck, gripping one of the hydraulic lines.

“Scott got mad,” it said. “For the first time in his life he got mad, and he punched the boy hard in the face.”

“Wow,” I nodded, letting out a small sigh, “sounds like a day in the life of your average teenager, huh?” I went to pat the machine on the shoulder, much like a father would his own son after such a delicate experience. “You know,” I started, “as men we’re doomed to remember that first heartbreak—it gets etched into us; it’s no surprise that that’s one of the memories he’s given you.”

Zeke nodded.

“I bet Doctor Novocain didn’t have this in mind when he started weaving psyches together, huh, Scraps?”

“Novokov,” Zeke corrected.

“Is this what you woke me up for?” Alice was leaning up against the earthy partition, sliding a finger over both her sleepy eyes.

Approaching her, I lowered my voice to a whisper. “Your robot is losin’ it, Alice, and I don’t think it was in Zolaris’ best interest to create an unstable entity.”

“Who says he’s unstable?” she asked. “Maybe this is exactly what they had in mind. Childhood is a very important part of human development, and now Zeke is able to experience it through Scott.”

I found myself regretting ever giving her those psychology books. She was practically an expert on the subject now.

“He just needs to get out,” she suggested. “Stretch his legs a little, you know? He’s getting cavern fever being all cooped up here.”

Taking an additional step toward her I spoke directly into her ear. “Zeke’s not a chocolate lab, Alice. He’s a complex war machine and I don’t want him getting all teary at my workbench.”

“So let’s give him another mission,” she smiled, “a challenge; something to keep his processors busy.” Alice walked toward Zeke and knelt to retrieve a few mechanical parts from beneath the table, then reached up to place the random necessities on its surface. Alice mumbled something about a solenoid and a PC board as a couple of sharpened objects skipped across the metallic plane.

“He’ll strike tonight,” she announced, “and that’ll give me some time to put the next piece of this puzzle together.”

I crossed my arms. “And what Greek analogy do you have for this adventure?”

Alice thought for a moment. “Not Greek,” she concluded, “but Native American.”

“Oh?”

“Yes. Did you know that tomahawks had multiple uses?”

I shook my head, waiting for her to continue.

“Not only were they used for battle—commonly the weapon of choice for scalping enemies—but when given to the opposing tribe’s chief, they would serve as a peace offering.”

I was trying to follow. “So ... you’re gonna give the government your Hellburner?”

“No.” Alice raised an eyebrow at me. “That would be stupid. No, in this case the tomahawk wouldn’t actually be a weapon
per se.”
She leaned over to get the robot’s attention. “Zeke,” she called as the kinetic entity lifted its lulling dome, “show Miles what we found last night.”

The robot rose, taking a step around the chair it had been occupying, as it displayed a still of this theoretical tomahawk. And much like the feeling that Zeke had only just experienced, I too found a powerful emotion heating the flesh of my upper spinal column—bringing my blood to a boil.

“I’m in.”

Alice smiled, putting her hand on my shoulder. “Yes, I knew you’d be.”

She started her work immediately.

There were two phases to each of Alice’s projects I enjoyed the most: the beginning and the end. Watching her, it was not at all difficult to understand why. At the beginning, once her brain had tossed itself into overdrive, there would be no more room for conversation, at least not at this initial point of her creative journey. So I’d learned to take a step backward, both physically and figuratively, giving her all the space she might require.

Her hands would appear to detach themselves from any cerebral control, harnessing their own separate source of intelligence. Once this intricate bonding began, it was with only this union she would trouble herself. Her lips would move while not a phrase would escape them; and through this silent, mechanical dialogue she’d craft miracles, construct feats of the most extreme implausibility, and never reach the bounds of my seemingly bottomless astonishment. In these times of creativity, nothing would distract her from her purpose.

At the end, for yet more obvious reasons, I observed her as she watched her creations come to life—seeing her previously silent lips spreading themselves into a lovely smile. It was a moment that seemed to make what was left of the world worth something—something unique—something vastly more profound than simple devastation.

Little did I know that this device, although just a brief assortment of disconnected ideas at the moment, would become unlike anything she’d conjured before.

“You gotta name for this contraption?” I asked, hoping to catch her before she’d launched herself into another trance.

“Wraith,” she answered, without even the slightest delay.

Alice prepped Zeke for departure as the hours began to settle upon dusk. The cooling air had grown thick and heavy above our cavern, sending audible creaks to crawl through the encompassing metal as the sun began its westward descent.

Zeke would be taking my Jeep tonight. Along with the payload with which it should be returning, it just seemed like the more logical mode of transportation. There were disadvantages as well, of course. The Jeep, given the dusty conditions of Earth, wasn’t too difficult to track if one were so inclined. Fortunately the post-apocalyptic debris grew scarce the farther one got from the city, and we lived far enough that I wasn’t too worried about someone following the tire treads all the way back to the cavern. I was mostly concerned with Zeke leaking hydraulic fluid onto the interior of my Jeep, which wasn’t exactly a critical complaint at the time.

Zeke tossed on a few of my garments; among them was a black t-shirt depicting a picture from one of my favorite movies. There was a man on its front, his head tilted and mouth slightly ajar, as his hands were held shoulder-height and his fingers curled inward.

In the story, this certain hero—a semi-charming and quick-witted smuggler—gets himself encased in a kind of life-sustaining carbon alloy, in order to ensure his safe transport to a grotesquely obese alien gangster.

It had been the t-shirt I’d worn when my daughter entered the world. And although that remains to be one of the most casually dressed introductions I’ve ever been a part of, it’s an article I could never bring myself to discard.

Alice and I watched as Zeke started up the Jeep’s engine, mimicked my sideways salute, then drove up and out of our underground garage. I entered the night only to lock the perimeter gate and returned to the earth to seal that steel heap of a freight door. I was visibly nervous and Alice picked up on it instantly.

“It’ll be fine,” she said.

I nodded. “He’s a capable machine, I know. I just hate the suspense.”

“Would you rather all three of us go, then?”

She knew the answer to that, which is why she’d asked in the first place. I hated the thought of putting Alice in danger again, even though she’d proven herself well suited for peril; but she was my weakness, and I knew I wouldn’t be in my right mind with her out there, too. So I was fine leaving it up to Zeke; perhaps it’s just difficult for one stubborn hunter to pass the torch to another.

We entered the workbench area; Alice took a seat there, but I couldn’t sit just yet. I instead found myself pacing, but trying to look busy doing so. I checked on various switches and visuals, attempting to pass this as an air of diligence instead of what it actually was—just an intense case of riled nerves.

“Sit down,” Alice said. “Relax a little.”

I came to sit beside her. She smiled at me.

“Take a breath.” She ran her hand through my hair. “I’ve never seen you like this.”

“There’s never been a day like this,” I said.

“Which reminds me ... ” Alice reached below the table to retrieve a thick, leather-bound sketchbook. She opened it and started flipping through its yellowish pages, which were thoroughly decorated with both written and pictorial entries. This book is where Alice had recorded every project in each stage of its development; and even though all of her drawings were done in simple, black, ballpoint pen, they were nearly photographic.

I recognized a good dozen of the projects, while others remained rather obscure in their exploded views, which spanned across their vast lines of orderly text.

Alice nicknamed this book her
Codex Atlanticus,
after the magnificent, collaborative works of a famous fifteenth century artist and inventor.

She found the nearest virgin page and started to apply thin, methodical strips of ink to it, creating the Wraith yet again, but this time in only two dimensions. She quickly mapped the machine’s inner-mechanical workings, then split it up to show each minute side-system. Next, Alice added the words—lines of neat English, accentuated by the occasional number in metric units. She preferred the metric system, as opposed to the standard measuring system, which had been mainly used by only us mighty Lockwashers.

She’d long since refused to utilize it.

A great many pages of her
Codex Atlanticus
had been devoted to none other than the Zeke machine. The entity continued to grace a staggering percentage of the book, and remained her most prized accomplishment to date.