Last Wednesday by Ben Trayne (ebook offline reader TXT) 📖

“Audrey, where are you going to get the code to allow Theo to do that?”

“You asked me what I'd been doing. Now you know. No secrets. This may have been the most daunting task of my portion of this entire effort! And it actually hadn't occurred to me I'd be doing it. Can you imagine, what it takes to deliver a simple facial expression?”

“Emotions, Audrey. Are you sure?”

This time it was Audrey who was incredulous. “Did you not hear the anxiety in his voice when Theo gained consciousness for the first time? You all know I've been talking to him. His biggest concern is whether everyone will like him! Sound like emotions, to you?”

Musing, she added, “I wonder if we actually have any idea, what we've done?”

**********

Several more weeks passed. And while none in the group attempted to draw a comparison to other massive technological projects that had come before, for each of them, this was the most intense, productive and satisfying endeavor in which they had ever been involved. Theo would have the ability to feel even the passage of a breeze, through touch-sensitive panels that were dotted with thousands of temperature sensors. Of course he would not draw breaths, but would continuously sample the air with sensitive olfactory detectors. These were far beyond the current state of the art. His machine vision, developed from theory contributed by former outsider Alex, would provide a clear picture of whatever stood before him, his range of perception limited only by the settings chosen. They were kept within the range of human-visible wavelengths as well. The single biggest problem with it, correcting for parallax using digital pixel modification, required the inclusion of a binary interface within Theo's visual section. As the two systems were entirely incompatible, a separate processor was required. It needed more power and generated more heat than anything else, except for the drive motors that would provide Theo's mobility. As a final touch, Alex added an iris to each of the two “eyes.” They would remain closed unless Theo willed them open. Alex had surmised, as Theo was sentient, he would require moments of peace, and reflection. Alex had always accomplished that with his own eyes closed.

To be sure, nearly every person involved, from Audrey's professor to the most distant collaborator, imagined what it would be like to be a sentient being within the confines of a metallic body. But at least one, unwilling collaborator, had not. That individual was a general, who had expected to take delivery of five advanced tracked vehicles from a defense contractor. The general had been overruled from higher up, and would be forced to accept only four. Thus little Theo would be in possession of a set of tracks that were independently suspended from the chassis, and thus they could be raised and lowered; an inertial guidance system with embedded controllers, and GPS. Still, Audrey was not happy. As she and Charlie drove away from Denver with the vehicle in the back of a rental van, she muttered, “Binary! The fucking thing is binary!”

“No need to fret,” Charlie soothed, “We already have a binary processor for the visual input. It won't be that much more trouble to add an interface to provide a sense of balance.”

“Binary!”

“It'll be fine. It'll be great.”

It would be great. All things taken together, Theo's existence would amount to the single greatest technological leap for mankind, to that date.

And so, at last, in an unbelievably short span of time, Theo became a physical being. A virtual intelligence no more, he was reborn in mid-August of the same year. In perfect concert with the face of a small boy on his bright monitor screen, Theo opened his irises and beheld the small indoor world around him. Sensory inputs flooded in. Light, and color. Warmth, and atmospheric pressure. Scents. It was glorious. Theo, of course, had had no idea. And then, the ultimate; Audrey herself placed a warm palm against Theo's touch-sensitive panel. Shivers invaded his consciousness.

“Whoa!” Then, “Audrey?”

Smiling broadly, Audrey stepped back and gazed into Theo's auto-focusing lenses. “Yes,” she replied, simply. “It's me. Welcome to the world, Theo!” The others stood in their now-familiar semicircle, clapping and smiling.

Audrey had been a comforting voice in darkness, but now, Theo could see, she was so much more. He gazed at all of them, and through his monitor, he smiled back. It was the wide-eyed, innocent, amazed, endearing smile of a child.

*******

Much more had happened to Theo since his rebirth. One of the hundreds of things Audrey had done for him was to introduce him to music. He dearly loved music, and soon it played continuously in the background as his learning progressed. One day, Audrey had left the room to get a candy bar. When she returned a few minutes later, she found Theo rapidly raising and lowering his tracks as if stepping, his little metallic chassis bobbing with the music. Soon he was making circles, whirling about, his turret moving side-to-side. Audrey summoned the others. “Come quickly,” she had urged, “You've got to see this! Theo is dancing!”

And so he was. As a result, he was gifted with a rather large archive of converted music, as each of his human creators took the time to prepare some of their favorites for him. Audrey and Theo began to dance together, exactly as would a mother and a small child. But Theo found himself caring for her in deeper ways, none of which he would ever understand.

A new wrinkle was introduced unexpectedly when Audrey brought Theo a kitten. The thought was innocent, as Audrey simply wanted Theo to begin to understand and to embrace the meaning of life in the natural world. He was, after all, the very first of his kind. Surely he would become a teacher for others like him who, without doubt, would follow. It was her place, she had reasoned, to teach him. Thus, she would be setting the first parameters for a symbiotic existence with humanity. She had, unfortunately, been unprepared for his wish to handle and to feed the kitten himself. She had sent people scurrying to adapt manipulating mechanical arms, hands and fingers for him.

But this day, this Wednesday morning of October, had come well before the new additions could be completed. Theo was alone. Detecting a tremor in the earth's crust, Theo backed quickly away from the edge of the cracked concrete slab.

In thought and in spirit, Theo was still a child. He had awakened according to the settings of his internal clock, as had become usual. He would automatically go to sleep again at six-thirty pm. Audrey had been with him or near him nearly every minute of each nine-hour day, his constant companion and teacher, seven days a week.

Yet today something was decidedly different. Audrey was not there when Theo awakened, and his kitten was nowhere to be seen. The comparative brilliance of daylight swept through the former confines of Theo's abode, along with a hot breeze, and often, smoke. He had only seen daylight twice before, when Audrey had led him down the stairs and through the front doors. Her intent had been to help him to understand his surroundings, and to allow him to see that there was a much larger world beyond the walls of his home.

As any small child would be, Theo was now terrified. For overall, he still knew very little; he understood nothing of changes in the planetary environment, or of earthquakes, or of war, or even of death. Like the mother of a two-year-old, Audrey had spared him these things. It was simply not yet the time.

And the very last thing Theo had expected was to experience the emotional pain of separation. Very painful it was, for he did not understand. But sometime during the night, obviously, something terrible had happened to, at least, the portion of the world in which he lived. Audrey was simply not there.

But then, with bravery not characteristic of most humans, Theo began to reason. Ordinarily he might have asked questions, but with no one present to ask, he would have to depend on the little he knew. Mentally he recounted everything he'd been told, all of the things he had learned, and he began to extrapolate. He was, after all, of genius intelligence, in human terms.

At that moment, had Theo been a human child, he might have squared his shoulders, breathed deeply, and sallied forth, toddling off to find his beloved Audrey. Theo carried out the first two things emotionally, and the third, physically. He decided to play some of his music archive as he did so, as it had always lifted his spirits.

So as Theo carefully descended the stairs toward the great outdoors, his audio outputs emitted strains of Handel's Water Music Fourteen. The lilting sound of hornpipes filled the air around him. The music did make him feel better. Perhaps everything would be alright. Thankfully, he didn't notice the body of his gray kitten as his tracks passed well above her, on one of the concrete steps.

Exiting the building through twisted and shattered front doors, Theo negotiated a path over chunks of fallen concrete with relative ease, his drive motors whirring softly. The chain link fence had been mashed flat by whatever cataclysmic event had taken place, and he passed through without impediment. Of course, everything looked quite different from what he'd seen there before. Halting atop a great slab of concrete that was now parked in the narrow street, Theo elevated his machine vision eyes above his turret and scanned the area again. He would have proceeded toward anyone he might have seen, to ask about his Audrey. But there was no motion anywhere, except for smoke on the wind. And so he picked his way slowly through the obstructions to the end of the street and made a right turn, toward the remains of the great city he had observed from the second floor of his home.

It was about an hour later that Theo realized there was something unusual ahead, and it was not a good sort of unusual. His progress had been quite slow. He had no idea how far he had come, had no real notion of distance or even of time elapsed. He only knew it had been a while, and that something was increasingly odd, in this direction. Theo perceived it as heat, and as a bit of a background hum, although it was inaudible. After an even longer period of time and movement, he stopped, to make sure there was nothing to hear. Then he moved on.

Theo's overriding, terrified state of mind was his greatest impediment. And who would ever have imagined that a little tracked robot would be parked on the embankment of a road, wailing and in emotional distress, with none alive to hear? Especially, in this place? Eventually, he had wailed himself out, and once again he began to move. He turned back, to retrace his path.

In the blindness of anxiety, perhaps, distracted by his music, Theo had failed to notice that some of the immobile objects were humans. He had never seen any of them when they weren't upright. And why were they not moving? Theo decided to investigate. He moved closer to one, then to another and then another, bumping each of them gently with his tracks. What odd places these people must have chosen to sleep. And why would they not awaken? He called out. “Hey! Heyyyy!” There came no responses, from any of them. Deeply confused, unhappy and disturbed, Theo moved on.

After a time, he realized there was a larger road near to his path, higher and to his right. It was Slauson Avenue. As traffic had been light when the event had taken place, vehicle blockages were minimal. As Theo climbed the bank, he saw a clear path before him. There, he could at last move much more quickly. Without further thought, he opened up his