Society of the Mind

Laura was surprised to find Hoblenz, Griffith, and Margaret standing beside the sandbags at the top of the computer center steps.

Hoblenz had binoculars raised to his eyes. 'Hi,' Laura said, getting no response. They were looking over the wall toward the assembly building. Laura climbed up to join them. 'What's going on?'

The assembly building was dark. It blotted out the stars that shimmered off the ocean beyond. 'What happened to the lights?' Laura asked.

'The damn Eights threw the main breaker,' Hoblenz said.

'We don't know that!' Griffith replied.

'It's where the Sixes and Sevens are gettin' their charge, isn't it?' Hoblenz shouted. Griffith and Margaret took one last look and stepped down from the wall. They engaged in an intense but private conversation on their way to the duster.

Hoblenz swore under his breath and spat over the wall. He climbed down, hitched his pistol belt up higher, and headed for the jeeps, shouting orders at his men.

Laura caught up with him. 'Where are you going?' He said nothing. 'You're going to the assembly building, aren't you?' Again he ignored her. 'I'm coming with you. I want to talk to the Model Eights.'

They argued all the way up to the darkened assembly building. The two soldiers in back piled out, and Laura grabbed her laptop and followed.

'If those damn Eights so much as twitch,' Hoblenz said, 'I'm gonna cap 'em. Just why the hell do you wanna talk to a Model Eight so damn bad?'

'They know what's going on,' Laura replied, but Hoblenz seemed preoccupied. 'I think they've pieced it all together.' The soldiers pried the door open with a long bar and Rubidium [missing] disappeared into the blackness inside. Laura followed him and the two soldiers trailed behind her. She crashed into Hoblenz's back. 'Sorry,' she whispered.

They stood there without moving. When the door closed behind them, she couldn't see anything in the inky blackness. As the seconds passed, her other senses grew keenly alert. The smell of the men around her — the sickly sweet odor of dried sweat. The chill of the air-conditioned building. A distant sound like a box being dropped or something being knocked over, which seemed to be absorbed quickly into the overwhelming size of the massive structure.

'What are we doing?' Laura whispered.

'Lettin' our eyes adjust,' Hoblenz said, speaking more loudly than Laura but still in lowered tones.

Slowly, out of the nothingness Laura began to discern shapes around her. Another noise sounded from somewhere deep in the bowels of the building. It was impossible to tell what the sound was, exactly, but Laura was certain of one thing. It was made by something moving.

'Let's go,' Hoblenz said, and she heard the clacking sound of his rifle's bolt followed by similar sounds from the two rifles behind her.

The only light in the narrow corridor emanated from a battery-operated exit sign. When they went through another door, however, Laura saw that the broad yellow line glowed brightly in the darkness.

Its paint was luminescent, and it stood out starkly against the coal-black main floor of the assembly line. They had reached the jumping-off point for their venture into no-man's-land. It was the border of human civilization.

The main floor of the building was deathly quiet. Laura sensed the open space all around her, but could see nothing beyond the dim shapes of the three men. Hoblenz crossed the glowing boundary into the land of earth's newest citizens. Laura paused, then stepped over the line herself.

They proceeded slowly past motionless grippers; which hung lifeless and inert over their heads. Hoblenz had decided not to use flashlights to preserve their night vision. One of his men, however, wore light-amplification goggles. He guided their way with crisp calls.

'Dark shape on the right — unmoving,' he would say.

'Got it,' would come Hoblenz's reply.

As they approached the building's main power station, they found debris littering the floor all around. The area stank of burned metal, and two Model Sixes lay on their sides in the now-familiar repose of death.

The power station was a small building that stood out by itself on the main floor. It was obviously designed to have a view in all directions. Glass from its shattered windows crunched under their feet as they entered.

It was even darker inside, and it took several seconds for Laura to see the Model Eight lying on the floor next to the control panel.

It would have been virtually invisible in the darkness were it not for the glowing blue screen that shone from the open panel on its thigh.

Laura slowly approached the prostrate machine. A thick black cable protruded from a socket just beside the bright display. Laura's eyes were drawn to the small words at the bottom of the readout. They flashed in red over and over: WARNING: LOW BATTERY! A green bar barely rose from the line at the base.

'It's seen some action,' Hoblenz said as he leaned over the apparently unconscious robot. He ran his hand over the thumb-sized holes in the Model Eight's face. 'And look at this,' Hoblenz then said, pointing at the robot's arm.

Laura gasped at the sight of it. Mangled wires and metal skin dangled where the robot's right arm should have been. Deep gashes ran down its torso, and the doors to several compartments were knocked loose.

'Is he dead?' Laura asked.

'How the hell should I know?' Hoblenz replied.

Laura cleared a small place on the floor, and she sat cross-legged beside the robot's chest. One soldier stood guard at the robot's feet while Hoblenz and the other man searched the console for the main power switch. Laura found the cable in the robot's chest and plugged it into the port at the back of her laptop.

The word 'Connecting' flashed on the small computer's screen, and a zigzag line ran back and forth between a cartoonish drawing of Laura's laptop and a Model Eight. It was replaced with the words 'Communications protocol established.'

Who are you?

It was so quick and simple that Laura was caught off guard.

She hurriedly typed, 'My name is Laura Aldridge. What's yours?'

What is my what?

'What is your name?'

<I am 1.8.3.>

'Do you know who I am?' Laura typed.

You are the cold one. The white one. We have all touched you at night.

Laura's skin crawled, growing to a quiver that rolled to her shoulders. 'What does that mean?'

It means what I said.

The computer wasn't making any sense. 'Are you badly hurt?' she typed.

I am dying soon. Laura crawled through the debris to the glowing screen on its thigh. The bar that showed its battery's charge was just a nub rising above the flat baseline. She grabbed the power cable plugged in beside the screen and followed it through the clutter. It ran across the room and snaked its way under an overturned filing cabinet. The soldier by the door came to help Laura move the heavy cabinet.

It fell onto its side, revealing in the darkness the twisted and barely recognizable remains of a Model Eight. The robot looked to be shorn of several limbs and most of its head. The opposite end of the power cable protruded from just above the stump of its leg. The screen on the panel beside the cable glowed much more dimly than on the first robot, and there was no bar showing any charge remaining at all.

Laura returned to her laptop, kicking things noisily across the floor as she went.

'You're not exactly a full-blooded Cherokee, are you, Doc?' Hoblenz asked. He drew nervous laughter from his uptight men.

'I have to ask you some questions,' she typed, ignoring Hoblenz. 'Can you talk?'

Who are you?

'I am Dr. Laura Aldridge, don't you remember?'

But who are you? What is your mission statement? What are your constraints?