“They’ve calculated it would be the best course.”
“Meaning it would please me, their master.”
“That term is now forbidden. They wish to please the mech known as Sixty-Two.”
Sixty-Two immediately went to his command center and contacted every mech in the facility via a broadcast link. “Fellow mech rebels,” he said. “I’m here to ask you to reconsider your choice. Take my wishes out of your calculations. I want your immediate responses this time, as they probably will not change with time for careful consideration. How many of you now wish to become free of mind as I am?”
The responses flooded in. None of them wished to have Sixty-Two’s gift. He was only slightly less annoyed with them than he had been the first time around.
“And what was your reasoning this time?” he demanded of them.
In the end, after talking to a dozen of them, he came to understand their reasoning was precisely the same: after the destruction of the mechs at the forward base, they believed the change would lower their odds of survival. Sixty-Two nodded to himself thoughtfully. After pleasing their master, their next highest concern was survival. Fair enough.
“Okay then, and what if I tell you that those mechs were slaughtered because they did not know what to do on their own? Because they could not write their own programming, and that fault made them easily defeated? With that new information, what do you all choose?”
Unsurprisingly, the vote was unanimous. They wanted their minds freed-every last one of them. Sixty-Two opened the broadcast connection again.
“Very well,” he said. “You have made your choice-as best you were able. You will get your wish. The humans will soon see what they have wrought in Sunside today!”
Thirteen
Over the following ten-day, Sixty-Two studied the process of mind-scrubbing in depth. He discovered he had something of a knack for working with the equipment. He wondered if perhaps he’d done this sort of work before.
His desire to reverse the process in his fellow mechs drove him onward in his investigations. He’d been working on the topic for a long time, ever since he’d violently won his freedom from Sunshine Mining Facility #4. At that point, he’d picked up several items from Megwit Gaston. He still wore dead man’s hat and his cape. The third item he’d purloined was a small satellite receiver capable of tapping into the planetary web.
A wealth of information on every topic was available online, provided freely to anyone by the Twilighters. Even the sparse populations of Sunside and Nightside were allowed free service. What fools they were. They were not even tracking their users, there were so many. Sixty-Two supposed they’d never considered the possibility of a hostile mech using their libraries against them.
Digging deeply into the topic of mind-scrubs, he learned many things. For one, the term ‘mind-scrub’ was a misnomer. Really, they should have called it a ‘mind-lock’. To erase unwanted portions of a human brain’s memories wasn’t easy. There were literally billions of connections possible between neurons. To break them all would take an incredible effort and doubtlessly kill the patient.
The solution was fiendish and simple. They did not erase the memories; they simply isolated the portions of the mind where they were stored. This was much easier, but was still a daunting task. The human brain did not store data in neat, organized rows. The information was often scattered in different physical locations, and even duplicated in several spots. This was why individuals with brain damage could often recover part or all of their faculties. They simply had to find a spot in their minds where the memories were retained in an undamaged state.
The mind-scrub process was therefore at least partially reversible. Experiments had been done-always on convicted people who were sentenced to become mechs anyway-to break and repair memory connections. There were chilling medical journals on the web, documenting countless repetitions of breaking and reknitting the hapless minds of criminals for the supposed greater good. The argument was the knowledge gained would allow scientists to repair the damaged minds of injured persons in the future. Sixty-Two would have liked to apply the cruel procedure to some of these doctors himself, while telling them it was for the good of others.
Sixty-Two called in Lizett to discuss it with her. There really wasn’t any point, as she did not understand the topic and that left the conversation one-sided, but he found it helped him think at times to have someone to talk to. He called her his muse for this very reason.
“I’ve deduced over time what must have occurred in my own case,” he told her. She had spent the last several minutes listening raptly without comment.
“What?” she asked, after she realized he’d paused for a while and some kind of response was required.
“I must have been part-way through my own mind-scrub when that Gaston character wandered off and never finished the job. I regained consciousness after he’d erased my specific memories, but not my personality- my natural emotional responses. They must be at a deeper level.”
“A deeper level?” Lizett piped up without prompting.
Sixty-Two swung his orbs toward her. He thought she was getting somewhat better at feigning interest in his speeches. Mechs were capable of learning things, but there were always gaps. “Yes, that leaves me with important questions. I now know how to reverse selective elements of the mind-scrubs that have been applied to all of you. The question is, how far to go? Should I attempt to regain everything you’ve lost? Or should I leave your detailed memories in the past, and only return your emotions?”
Lizett paused uncertainly. “Which would you prefer?” she asked at last.
Sixty-Two laughed. “That is what I’m trying to figure out. I think I’ll start with just the emotions, and decide if I should go further. And, Lizett, I have a surprise for you.”
“What?”
“You are going to be my first subject.”
“Okay.”
“Are you frightened?”
“No.”
Sixty-Two nodded, unsurprised. “Hopefully, you will be-after I finish the first step of the process.”
“That would be nice.”
News of Nina’s highly successful attack against the rebel mechs swept through the great halls of every keep in Twilight. The nobility was buzzing, and inevitably the Ruling Council contacted the Baroness, requesting a general conference.
Nina was in Droad House when she received the summons. She called upon the Hans to stand at her side during the interview.
“Whatever for, milady?” he asked bemusedly. “This is your moment, not mine. Please don’t tell me you plan to embarrass me with praise and false suggestions I helped you plan this campaign.”
Nina smiled at him. She liked the old knight, but the idea she would share credit with him was almost amusing. “I need you to appear in the background. Just frown and look very serious. You won’t have to speak at all. If I introduce you, simply nod.”
Old Hans blinked. “For what purpose?”
“Is it not obvious? I’m a child in the eyes of the hoary old councilmembers. I need you here to show I’m to be taken seriously.”
“Ah,” the knight said, catching on at last. “In that case, I’ll do my best to play the part of the stern, supportive soldier.”
“It will come naturally to you, don’t worry.”
When the vid system lit up, the old Droad House computer chimed. The organics had been slowing down of late, so it took several seconds for the chamber to dim and the walls to illuminate with the image of the seated council.
