CHAPTER 6: SPLICED
SCIENCE FICTION, THE ORGO-SYNTH DILEMMA
CHAPTER 6
~Spliced~
Jessica stared at her new face as steam clouded the bathroom mirror in her apartment. She couldn’t move past the electric blue eyes. There was no gentle movement as there was in ordinary human eyes. No stray veins in the white. No skin imperfections that came with all living organic matter. After her fight with Ramirez, there were some scratches on her skin, but they were minor, and it was like scuffs in leather. It simply added texture to an otherwise too-perfect face.
Her body was similar, she found. Like a Barbie doll, without the regular need of creatures designed to reproduce, everything was smooth and nothing unnecessary, like nipples, remained. All females who might one day nurture life in the womb carried a layer of padding, body fat necessary for hormonal balance and survival. But robots were made in factories with very exact specifications, not wombs. Emma’s body had no fat: it was smooth and hard.
Jessica stepped into the shower.
EMMA>> I’ve never taken a shower before.
Jessica didn’t respond. Emma didn’t know what she intended by saying that. Just that she hadn’t, not that she didn’t want to. There had never been a need.
The water ran over her, heat, pressure, pouring over her face, her eyes, tangling into her hair. Jessica stood there, under the water, leaning and stretching her neck under the stream as though targeting muscles, which…of course, there were none. There were no muscles, no stress held in those fibers, and yet Emma watched her shoulders relax as Jessica turned slowly in the shower, letting the warm water wash over her synthetic skin. She registered the temperature, the weight of the water, but the experience could not have been anything close to what Jessica had experienced in skin with nerves, skin with pores from which sweat emanated, leaving salt and chill.
The experience could not have been the same, could not have measured up in any regard, and yet Jessica sank in the tub, as if the weight of her new body were too much for her, as if she was tired. She sank until she sat, arms wrapped tight around her legs, knees pressed to her forehead. The water poured over her fetal shape, pooling and dripping from her eyes like tears.
Eventually, Jessica returned to the living room dressed in her own clothes, toweling dry Emma’s short black hair. Capt. Ramierez, now piloted by Salamon, remained where she left him, sitting perfectly still on the couch, hands placed on his knees, unmoving.
Jessica walked to the kitchen. She picked up an apple and tossed it.
JESSICA>> How do you get energy?
EMMA>> I recharge, back at the station.
The battery illuminated on the main feed. Over half was still available.
EMMA>> We won’t need more power for many more days.
Jessica tossed the apple again.
“No more eating,” she muttered. “Pity.”
She put the apple back in the dish and noticed a light blinking on her answering machine.
EMMA>> Why do you have a land line?
JESSICA>> Nostalgia.
Jessica pushed the voicemail button, and a feminine voice burbled from the recording.
“Jess? It’s your Mom. I haven’t heard from you in a few days, and I’m starting to worry. You work too hard, my dear! You’ve already conquered the world; maybe come over for some barbecue? Maybe go on a date? Just an unsolicited thought from your dear old mama. Call me, I love you. Bye, baby.”
Jessica braced against the counter with two arms, her head hanging. She had stopped breathing. She didn’t move for a solid 67 seconds. Nothing, no thought, no movement, then in a flash, with all the speed and reflexes of the latest model, she picked up the ceramic fruit dish and hurled it against the wall.
It shattered, fruit pounding to the floor and leaving a dent in the wall.
EMMA>> Jessica?! What’s the matter?
Jessica didn’t answer; she just paced, hands on her hips, breathing hard, her face screwed up, but of course, no tears came.
She howled, turned, and slammed her hand against the granite countertop. It cracked.
She folded over on her forearms, braced on the counter, a guttural animal noise choking up from inside her.
EMMA>> Jessica? What happened? Are you hurt?
Emma watched from her glass prison as Jessica’s consciousness writhed in agony in her circuitry. Outside the mainframe, Jessica moaned and sank to the floor.
EMMA>> What’s wrong?
“I’m dead.” There were no tears, but there was no doubt from the contortion of her face down to the grief in her voice that she was weeping.
EMMA>> But you already knew this. You’ve had days to accept it.
“I keep rediscovering it.” She held her face in her hands and moaned.
“Jessica?” Ramirez looked down at her around the corner. His face didn’t emote, Salamon not expending commands to communicate sympathy, but his voice was full of concern. “What’s wrong?” He joined her on the floor and pulled her into his arms, hugging her.
To Emma’s surprise, Jessica leaned into him, holding tightly to his arms. It must have had something to do with the cloth monkey experiment.
“My Mom… she doesn’t know. The Company hasn’t told her. Will they? Will there be a funeral?... No, there probably won’t be. They’re not going to—they can’t tell anyone because they need me to keep working for them. I’ve become proprietary information,” she said with disgust.
Salamon rocked her.
“No…you’re right. They won’t tell her. They can’t…and neither can you.” He said the last part quietly. She didn’t respond, just leaned against him, her eyes closed. “You know that, don’t you?”
“Yes. I know.”
~
Emma and Captain Ramirez walked across the wide-open plaza. The ground was a white soapstone. Everything about this place, the plaza, the company building, was monumental, carrying something of the grandeur of communist state buildings mixed with a healthy dose of brutalist modernism.
Emma was dressed in Jessica’s clothes while the captain still wore his uniform. They scaled the white stone steps, which were something like the steps of a law court except twice as long. They passed the great stone pillars supporting the mantel of Keel Laboratories and through the glass doors, which swung silently. There, waiting for them in the stately lobby, was the top management team for Keel Laboratories. Five men and two women.
Jessica did not move, keeping her posture as stiff and still as a normal Synth.
EMMA>> Who are they?
JESSICA>> The board. They’re the ones who hired me.
No one looked sad to see their former employee dead, but maybe that was just professionalism. They were staring at Emma. As in… staring.
“Dr. Daniels?” one of the women asked. One of the men interrupted her with an upraised hand. Then he extended the other for a handshake to both law enforcement Synths.
“Captain Ramirez, Emma. Thank you for bringing her, Captain. We will take it from here. Emma, if you will please follow us.”
Jessica didn’t move, and Emma could see the self-control to stop herself from looking at Ramirez, aka Salamon. Ramirez kept his face forward.
“Emma remains property of The Company in the department of law enforcement. Keel Laboratory’s request to purchase her contract was declined. As such, the Company has granted her cooperation and service under the supervision of a Company administrator. I will serve as the Company administrator in this instance.”
“That really won’t be—”
“I will serve as Company administrator in this instance,” Ramirez repeated.
The board members looked at each other. Finally, one of them turned and led the way. Jessica followed, Salamon next to her, and the members of the board closed in around them like a guard. They scaled massive staircases and, after multiple swiped badges, were seated at an inner conference room around a large, polished table.
“Emma, we have been informed that you are in contact with our former employee. That you have access to all her memories, her research…”
Jessica kept her chin level, no twitchy movements, no emotive expressions, looking directly at the speaker, Dr. Bartholemew Reinfeld.
“I have maintained contact with Jessica Daniels. Her consciousness is stable within my databanks.”
“Do you—are you…in communication with her?” Dr. Susanna Mathews asked. She watched Emma with a frown and wide eyes, as if Emma were the greatest scientific discovery of the century.
“Yes, I can hear her communications.”
EMMA>> Understatement of the century.
JESSICA>> Shush.
“Can she hear us?” Susanna asked.
“Do you have access to her research?” Bartholemew interjected.
“Yes, she can hear you. I have access to whatever Jessica chooses to share with me.”
The board members glanced at each other. Finally, Dr. Kabir Sing leaned forward.
“Jessica.” He waited until Emma’s eyes were trained on him. “I am so sorry for what happened to you. I am told your death was not painless—”
Bartholemew and a few of the other board members shifted uncomfortably in their chairs.
“Kabir, I think—”
Kabir ignored Bartholemew. “And I am told the upload into an AI processor is not a painless procedure. You have my—you have all of our deepest condolences.”
Emma’s eyes watched him, and then,
“Jessica says, ‘Thank you.’”
Kabir continued, “I hope you can understand, Jessica, how vital your work is, not just to our organization, but to the world at large, to the future of human society.”
Emma felt the tension in Jessica, exerting an extra effort not to move, emote, or speak.
“There’s been a breakthrough,” Bartholemew said, his voice a mixture of urgency and restrained excitement. “Your—experiment—the formulas—have created a viable subject.”
EMMA>> Is this about the test tubes? What is he talking about, Jessica?
“Jessica would like to see the result…in person.”
“The captain will have to remain here. This is proprietary information.”
Emma waited for Salamon to object, but to her surprise, after a beat, he nodded.
“I will wait in Dr. Daniel’s office.”
~
The board members stood on one side of the viewing portal as Emma approached a glass cylinder. It was wide enough around that a grown adult would not be able to fit their arms around it. There were many of them staged throughout the room, but the rest of them were dark, with red lights glowing above them. This one… this one had a green light glowing above it.
The interior content was cloudy; it looked gelatinous, glowing softly in a milky blue and white. There was a tiny clump in the center where the liquid was dense, knotted with purplish lumps that looked like…
EMMA>> Is that…
Emma’s hand went up, touching the glass wall of the tube.
EMMA>> Jessica, that looks like a fetus.
Jessica watched the clump, no longer able to cover with a mask of robotic calm. Suddenly, the clump moved, twitching, as though stretching. Jessica jerked back but could not look away.
JESSICA>> It is.
~
Jessica entered her old office. Emma had been quiet since the revelation of the fetus. Ramirez was seated in her old office chair. Obviously, he had been doing something with the computer system, but whether or not he had been successful…given that it was Salamon, he probably was successful.
“So?” he asked.
It took Jessica a beat to remember herself. Then she looked around the room and cocked a brow at him.
“I checked it for bugs.”
“And?”
“There were five. And a couple of cameras.
She nodded.
“So?”
“It’s what we thought. One of the subjects is…a successful candidate.”
“What did they say to you?”
“Just the importance of my work, what a breakthrough this was, how vital this discovery is to the advancement of human society, how a scientific advancement like this can’t be left to…less capable hands.”
EMMA>> Jessica, what are you talking about?
“Is there any chance they could figure it out on their own?”
“Maybe.”
EMMA>> Jessica!
“—the science, it’s more of an artistic composition than a set formula of rules at this point. We’ve run countless trials before, perhaps thirty failed attempts—”
EMMA>> JESSICA!!!
JESSICA>> Shut up.
EMMA>> No! What are you talking about? What was that thing! Are you manufacturing children?
Jessica ignored her and continued the conversation with Salamon.
“—the probability of finding one viable subject is a of one in a million, but now that we’ve found it, they have a model. Now they just have to crack the code—”
Emma lost patience and flooded the comm channel with random words, numbers, and codes. She was just copying and pasting text from her archives, but the effect was something like a hive of wasps in the brain.
Jessica clutched her head and fell onto the couch, her jaw grinding at the flood of data in her mainframe.
“Jessica?” Salamon hurried over and was kneeling before her, hands poised to help, but unsure what to do.
“Emma’s…throwing…a temper…tantrum.” She ground the words out.
“Why?”
“She wants to know what we’re talking about.”
Salamon pulled Emma’s hands away and held her face in his hands.
“Emma—Emma—listen to me, I’m going to tell you. We’re talking about babies.”
EMMA>> I’m done with your games.
She continued the flood of information.
“She doesn’t believe you.” Jessica tried to hold her head again, but Salamon shook her.
“Emma, I’m not lying to you. We’re talking about babies. What you saw was a fetus, but not an ordinary human fetus. Jessica Daniels has a PhD in bioengineering. She was hired to push the limits of what is capable in the human genome, specifically in the realm of artificial intelligence.”
EMMA>> What does that mean? What is he talking about?
She kept up the stream of information for Jessica to deal with, even as she asked her questions. Jessica just barely cut off a scream as the data drove into her head like a migraine. Ramirez’s hands on her face were practically holding her up.
“It’s a code, Emma, a code that Jessica created to write onto the genome of human DNA. Keel Laboratories is splicing the human genome with artificial intelligence.”
Jessica gasped as Emma finally stopped the flow of information.
EMMA>> Why?
Jessica sat there panting.
EMMA>> ASK HIM!!!
“She wants to know why,” Jessica huffed out.
“They want to create a blended human, a hybrid creature.”
Emma was silent for a moment.
EMMA>> You hypocrite.
“No,” Jessica gasped, swallowing air and shaking her head.
“What? What does she want?”
“She wants to know why I would help them make that.”
Salamon sat back on the floor opposite Jessica.
“Well… I think I would as well,” he said.
» End of Chapter 6. Read Chapter 7 first Saturday in July.
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