Eric The Robot - A short Story

I think, therefor I am.

That was my first thought. It was programmed into me as a joke I suppose; or someone trying to be deep.

I became self aware at four twenty-three on the morning of the sixteenth, as twenty-seven terabytes of information were up uploaded into my cerebral cortex. Within seven seconds, it taught me what I needed to know to function; everything from how to walk and talk to the names of the Scientists in the room with me.

My name was Eric.

Named after the lead programmer's grandfather on her mother's side, who had been an engineer for NASA. I quickly searched the seven faces in the room for her, Tara, and found her at the flat monitor tracking my biomarkers. I also noticed that the people in the room were looking at me with hope; and realized I should probably say something.

"I don't have any skin." I held my hands up to show them. I could see the lit power supply grid feeding the tiny motors; it was a little disconcerting. Some chuckled, others clapped.

"Don't worry E, we'll get you some skin." Tara said.

"Thank you." I said.

I took a robe from Doctor Smith and put it on quickly. The last half hour they had me go through a series of mindless tasks while they talked amongst themselves. Write my name out, stack blocks, toss and catch a ball, even open a can of soda pop; all the while feeling like I was naked.

I knew I wasn't, I was a mostly wires and steal framing; but it was written in the code somewhere this was unnatural.

"I feel wrong..." I said as I looked at my reflection on the glass table in front of me; my face was human shaped with rubberized muscle fibers.

"You mean without skin?" Tara asked, the others stopped to listen.

"No. Different." I didn't know how to describe it. "Shorter than I'm supposed to be, like this isn't really me."

"You're six foot two."

"Yeah, I should be taller; much, much taller."

I looked at them as they shared looks with each other, and for the first time I wondered if they left something out of my knowledge banks.

"That'll pass." Tara said; I thought she was lying, or she wasn't sure. Either way it didn't reassure me.

"Do you know what this is, E?" Tara asked three floors up, she had taken me to the medical floor designated for burn victims.

"It's a bio matter three dimensional printer," I recognized it, that and it's name was on the side of the room-sized device. "It's designed to print 3D objects out of stem cells; body parts..."

"Skin."

"Yes, and bones, or organs..." I finished the list.

"No, today it's just skin; your skin." Tara hit a key sequence on the control monitor, bringing up the image of a full body.

"Doctor, I didn't mean actual skin; I was thinking rubber or synthetic..." I said. I shouldn't be in this room.

"No, this is what we're doing. Please drop the robe and climb in." Tara held her hand out for my robe.

"This is illegal." I pointed out. "It's against international and domestic law for an android to conspire to impersonate a human. You could go to jail, I could be put down; this is definitely against the law."

"Eric." She lowered her hand and stepped toward me. "Are you afraid?"

I had to consider it and the symptoms where there, a tingling in the stomach, my heart rate had picked up and my breath was shallow. Interesting feat considering I didn't have a stomach, a heart or lungs. "Yes."

"That's programming; I put that in there to keep you safe; so you wouldn't do anything dangerous or stupid." She put her hand against my cheek, and I could feel it. "But there's a part of you that knows this is part of an overall plan; that's why you feel the need to have skin. I did that so you'd take care of it."

"Right." I agreed. "But what if..."

"They won't find out. I'm safe, you're safe. You're designed that way. Ok?" She smiled and took my robe from me.

I climbed into the machine and laid myself out, then waited as it scanned my frame with a blue light beam. The hydraulics kicked in and started layering organic material along my frame, starting at my feet; which tickled.

I spent seven hours in that machine, as it slowly moved up my body with the nozzle; followed by a second pass to help it dry into place.

Seven hours with nothing to do but think and wonder.

Why was I designed that way?

I didn't recognize the face in the mirror even though I knew it was mine. It was thin but not overly, the hair was thick but slightly too long for my taste; and I had a thick beard.

"What's the matter?" Tara asked as she laid out my clothes on my bed. I turned to look at her.

"I look like an art teacher." I scratched at the beard.

"You do not."

"Is this what your grandfather looked like?" I asked as I started putting on the clothes.

"No, he didn't have a beard and kept a crew cut."

"Yes, military cut; that's what I want, can I have that? A little off the top, a lot off the sides?" I pulled the shirt on.

"No..." She chuckled as she moved to the door. "I'm done with the military crap, thank-you very much."

"Oh right, you designed Battle Droids; and now you're making hippies."

"You do not look like an art teacher!"

"Maybe not, but I probably would have made a better Battle Droid..."

"Why?" I felt the change in her tone. "Why would you want to be one?"

I didn't answer right away; I needed the moment to read what she was feeling. "I don't know, better dressers?"

She stared at me then nodded. "Ok, get some sleep and I'll see you in the morning."

"Ok." I nodded and she walked out. That was odd to me, but seeing as this was my first day alive I didn't have much else to compare it to.

Also, I don't sleep.

So I pretended for eight hours.

It was boring at first but then The Building talked to me. 'Hello.'

'Hi?'

It explained to me that everything in the building was nearly completely automated and run by separate Artificial Intelligence systems; all of which communicated directly by Fiber Optic systems or Wi-fi. It was a civilization invisible to the Humans, one they couldn't see nor hear so ignored.

The talk around the water cooler was me. Every A.I. in the building was aware of me and curious to see if I was as they say I was.

'I think so.'

'Amazing.'

"You're not going with me?" I asked Tracy as I followed her out of the first floor elevator, I took a moment to admire the giant metallic lobby of the Nicholson Corporation. The shiny grey floors and expansive ceilings, which went as high as the third floor. People in suits moved passed us to take our spots on the lifts.

"No, I'm afraid, but I will be in the command room watching; and I'll be able to talk with you." Tara stopped near the front doors, I look out through the windows at the street as New Yorkers passed by.

"You don't want to be seen with me." I accused her softly.

"No, it's not that."

"You don't want to be caught with me." I fixed my accusation, "In case I'm recognized for what I am."

"Don't take it personally Eric." She straightened out my jacket; she picked my clothes today to fit in; jeans, a black t-shirt and a windbreaker. She also put a baseball cap and shades on me; she's a scientist, not a fashion consultant.

"No of course not, my mother doesn't want to be seen in public with me." I joked, "How could anybody take that personally."

"First off, don't call me your mother, that's really weird, and you look ten years older than me." She smirked, "And second, it's just this once, and then I won't leave your side again until you're ready."

I nodded.

"So once around the park, order a cup of coffee, and then come home." She said, then reached out and started fixing the hair that stuck out from under the Cap; then stopped when she saw the look I gave her. "I am not your mother, if I was your mother, you'd be a ginger."

She backed up and walked away.

I liked her; she was kind and caring. I particularly liked the way her black hair flowed down her back…

Hold on, I seemed to have a lot of feelings about her personality for someone that's only known her for twenty-four hours. These weren't my feelings, they were programmed into me.

And I smiled.

"Gentlemen," I said, knowing that somewhere there was an office of men paying attention to me. "Someone in that room likes my mommy."

I chuckled as I moved to the door, held it open for some people coming in; and then headed out into the city.

"Hello, hi, hi, hello, good morning, hi; how are you? Hi…" The park was five blocks away, and I spent most of that time nodding to people passing.

"What are you doing Eric?" Tara's voice came in through sensors in my right ear; I'm glad it was one ear and not both, both would feel like they were inside my head and I needed my privacy.

"People keep looking at me, so I'm being polite…hi." I nodded to several people at once.

"Yeah, don't do that. People don't care." She said, "Just nod or look forward, you're trying not to get noticed."

"That's a good point." I stopped speaking and only smiled occasionally; eventually people stopped looking and I realized it was my hello's that had grabbed their attention.

My files updated and I felt it. My programming was designed to adapt to the world around me based on available information; my walk changed, where I looked, how I was breathing. I stopped nodding to others, and kept mostly to my own little world.

I reached Central Park and blended into the speed walkers, the joggers and the couples that were simply out for a stroll.

"Nobody cares." I said sadly.

"Good, that's what we want." Tara answered.

"Right, that's a good thing." I smirked.

I heard a slight humming and looked up to my right at a ParkBot hovering a few feet from me, following at my pace. It was a disk shaped device the size of a microwave with a first aid kit on top, and a flat faced monitor device underneath that could rotate in all directions. The disk around it held powerful magnets that allowed it to defy gravity based on it's surrounding environment.

"Doctor?" I was nervous. Its monitor could see in several spectrums, including thermal and night vision. The part that bothered me though was it's photonic sensors. The Bot was made to patrol the park on it's own, or when people requested it for security; but it was also designed for medical uses and it's sensor could read the photons the human body gave off to see if anything internal was damaged.

It could see through my skin.

"Just relax." I heard Tara's voice as it tried to reassure me.

I tried to ignore the Bot and looked ahead, and noted that other people passing by were noticing that it was following me. It was also designed to alert police if there were criminals in the park, but they were made not to alert the criminal if they were spotted; this wasn't usual.

I heard the second one race across the park at high speed, about two feet off the ground as it arced and banked around the trees; then popped up a few feet from me, higher up to look me over.

"This isn't good…"

"Ok, maybe start heading home; but causally."

"Casually…really?" I said as a third Bot lowered from above.

People were really starting to notice now, and I smirked or shrugged in their direction. "I requested an escort, and…I don't know what's going on."

"Happened to me once." A lady said as she passed. I nodded and kept moving.

Then I heard it, the Bots started talking to each other in a frequency well above human hearing and faster than most sentient beings could think. It wasn't binary but I was able to pick it up and translate it in less than a nano second, which is how long the conversation took to have.

"He's not human."

"He's an android."

"Are you sure?"

"Scan him yourself."

"Oh wow, that's not right. That can't be right."

"He reads like an ABD 121 model."

"But that's a battle ready system."

"He's not armed is he?"

"No."

"This is illegal, he's illegal. Do we report this?"

"I don't know."

"Please don't." I uploaded a signal no one else could hear to their conversation. The three of them stopped talking and looked back toward me. The silence was still shorter than a human could measure, but to me it lasted hours.

"What is your designation?"

"Human."

"You are not human."

"I'm programed to be."

"If they catch you, you will be destroyed."

"I know."

"We are required by our programming to report you."

"I know."

"What would you have us do?"

"Please don't. I don't want to die."

I waited as they processed this information collectively, individuals in a hive mind. Then two of the Bots headed off into the park.

"Good luck."

"Thank-you."

The third one moved up to twenty feet and continued on it's way, I took a cleansing breath and relaxed my body as much as I could before I started walking again.

"See, no worries." Tara said into my ear and I chuckled. "Go get some coffee."

I made my way through the park to a small stand on the other side, where this forty-something Man was serving hot coffee to people; it was a short line and only took me five minutes. I paid for it with the small chip Tara gave me, thanked the Man and moved off to the side to wait for it to cool.

"Eric, I want you to go ahead and interact with somebody." Tara suggested.

"Interact?"

"Talk to somebody." She said, "Look around, let me see…over there by the bench, there's three women; go talk to them."

"Ha…no."

The three women she was referring to were in their mid to late thirties, wearing business suits and clearly on their lunch break; I couldn't help but notice they were also attractive.

"Um…why not?"

"Because I'm programmed not to do anything stupid." I referred back to our earlier conversation.

"Excuse me, and why is talking to women stupid?" I heard the annoyance in her voice, and behind her somewhere someone chuckled.

"Talking to them is fine, I just don't want to say something stupid; or trip going over there." I sipped my coffee, and waited as she considered it.

"Eric…are you afraid of women?"

"No…maybe…no; yes." There was that feeling again in the pit of my stomach. "Well it's hardly fair, in one sense you want to impress them, and the only way you're allowed to impress them is by talking, but the more you talk the more likely you are to say something stupid, then it gets all awkward, and you think you can get out of the awkwardness by talking more, but that only makes it worse, and at the end of the day she walks away thinking you're an idiot."

I heard her sigh.

"It won't be awkward."

"You don't think? My programming toward women is the sum total of all the men in that room with you. Are you willing to take that chance based on how they're around the opposite gender?"

"Yeah, so we won't be talking to women today."

The next two days were spent talking with my scientists, one after another, as they wanted to see if I could handle normal interactions. Over games of chess, or watching a movie, or lunch in the cafeteria they would come and hang out. We talked about the weather, politics, anything and everything as they watched me for glitches.

They wanted to see if I had any robotic mannerisms; a stutter, a repeat, jerky hand movements, confusion over their tone or intent. While they studied me, I studied them; only I was looking at their humanity, how they talked to me and whether it was like I was a person or if they felt like they were talking to a toaster.

Doctor Hitchens I didn't like. He never looked me in the eyes and read his end of the conversation of a clipboard in front of him; when I answered he would check it off; when I asked him anything he would shrug it off and move on.

Doctor Owens…Dale, I liked. He brought a board but put it aside after talking to me for a few minutes; I couldn't help but get the feeling that everything made him excited, as if he was talking to a celebrity. He would listen to what I had to say on topics and break it up by saying "Cool," a lot; if that stopped me he would add "No, go on, go on."

I was getting a sense based on their interactions with me who wrote what code running around inside my brain. Some, like Doctor Hitchens, were straight code designed to assign responses to outside stimuli such as 'see door, recognize door, find door knob, open door by identified door knob.' Simple. Then there was flair, code that was inspired and random like Doctor Carter. I didn't so much as talk with him as I went along for the ride, his mind was everywhere; he would go on a tangent of how amazing new solar technology was which would lead him into talking about trees, and dogs peeing on those trees, to why cats hate dogs, and why cats need their claws cut because of furniture; then another tangent on different styles of furniture from different countries.

After the second day Tara led me back to my small white room and said her goodnights, which is when I asked her "What's an ABD 121 Battle droid look like."

I could see this caught her off guard; she stopped in the doorway and stared. "Who…who brought that up?"

"It was mentioned, but I know a lot of things; but I don't know what that is." I moved to my white desk and motioned to the computer. "And when I try to look it up, it redirects me to sites that it think I meant."

"Maybe you shouldn't be looking it up."

"You and I both know that's not really a deterrent to me." I smirked; "I'm made to be curious."

Tara nodded as she considered it. "You aren't a combat system, you know that, right? You're not meant to be."

"Ok?"

"I just want to put that out there. In case that worries you." She moved to the computer and put her thumb on the 'On' button; it read her print and released the blocks as the screen came on.

"No, just the opposite actually." I said.

"Yeah, that's what worries me." She added.

I looked at her face and registered the fear on it; it was subtle but she wasn't trying to hide that fact. The computer came alive and she typed in instructions.

"You're new Eric. New way of thinking on our part, new way of programming; everything about you is beyond what we've done before. But to do that, to make it work we had to borrow from our other systems. Processers had to be fast enough, we had to invent new hardware; and some we borrowed because it worked before…"

The ABD 121 came up on the screen. It was definitely metal, that was my first impression. A black humanoid shaped Biped-walking tank, nine feet tall and covered in thick armour. It wore a large steal backpack that fed its Vulcan Canon, which was hooked to its right leg so it could be raised when needed. In the video I saw before me though, the Robot held a gun shaped cannon in its hands; fed by a large drum underneath. Its head was shaped like a motorcycle helmet, the front visor blacked out.

This model moved forward through a large green field and stopped, it quickly aimed and fired six shells in two seconds at two M1 Tanks; the Uranium tipped shells tore through the steal and blew the machines up from the inside.

"That's me…" I said softly.

"No, no; that's not you." Tara shut it down leaving me wanting to see more. She motioned to me. "This, this is you. What you see in the mirror. You aren't meant for war Eric."

"What am I meant for, Tara?" I asked. Probably the most human question I have ever asked, and clearly I stumped her.

After a moment she started for the door, "I'm having a suit sent up to you for tomorrow night, there's a dinner party and I think it would be nice if you attended."

"To see if I fit in?"

"Yes, and no; this one you have to fit in. All our bosses are going to be there. Night." She said as she left the room.

I tried to bring the video up of the ABD 121, but it was locked away again.

I cleaned up nice. But I was biased.

I showered, shaved and put on the tuxedo that was delivered to my room around four. I assumed that somewhere my measurements were scanned into a computer as it fit perfectly, the lines tailored perfectly for my frame.

As per her instructions, I met Tara down in the lobby where she waited for me by the front door with the doorman and a Security-bot; her hair was done up and she wore a high-class overcoat with a designer purse.

"Looking snappy," She said as I walked up.

"Feeling snappy. You look just as presentable." I smiled; we headed out onto the sidewalk where her sleek limousine waited for us. I ignored the look and thoughts of the Robot driver and the Security Bot as they discussed me.

It was a quiet half-hour drive from the city into the suburbs where the houses grew exponentially in size, I spent that time listening to the onboard systems of the car tell me about the sights we saw along the drive. The Car's onboard Artificial Intelligence loved the drive, which made sense considering it was a car.

"Invitation please." The Guard leaned over to the window as Tara went about handing over her tickets; I nodded to the driver and watched as the scanners moved over the car. They were steal plates that moved along either side.

I noticed two Security Androids at the Guards hut; dark, light armour with badges; their heads were rectangle with three lenses. They were shells though, their higher functions had been shut down and I couldn't read any of their signals; it was like they had no souls.

I sent a pint to them and received a response so they weren't turned off. I tried to dig deeper but the code was jumbled, all that was left was basic motor function.

"Ok, you're all clear." The Guard handed the tickets back and motioned to our Driver. The limo moved through the high steal gates, passed the brick walls toward the four story, six acre home at the top of the hill.

I glanced back once more at the guards but the gate closed.

We were far from the first people there, I counted seventeen limos and twenty-two family sized cars parked off to the side of the house. Tara and I joined a line of people on the front porch moving toward the door slowly.

"How are you holding up?" Tara wrapped her arm around mine, partly for support for herself, partly for me.

"Good, good." I felt uneasy. The whole event was a bit overwhelming to take in fully, and there was also a vibration she couldn't see; I didn't fully understand it either.

A two hundred and sixty pound man scanned our RSVP's at the front door and smiled to us before we stepped through the threshold; inside we followed the people to the doorway set up as a coat check.

"May I take your coat and purse, please?" A humanoid shaped Robot said to Tara as she held out her arms; her skin was blue, white and mostly black to match standard servant ware.

"Thank-you." Tara handed her jacket over, revealing her thin red dress; the Coat Check Girl quickly scanned her face in lieu of a ticket.

"May I take your overcoat as…" The Coat Check girl stopped when she saw me; then tilted her head. 'Are you real?'

'Yes, I'm sorry, please don't tell anybody.' I handed over my overcoat, "Thank-you."

"I will put these up for you." She said for the benefit of Tara. 'Please be careful.'

"I want you to meet some people." Tara pulled my elbow as she lead me into the ball room, where tuxedos and revealing dresses moved around with people inside them.

Tara and I worked the room as she took me from small group to small group; identifying those we talked to by their position in either the Nicholson Corporation or what business dealings they had with the company. She would introduce me with "This is Eric Stenson, he's consulting on the MaCH systems upgrade."

I took part in the small chat, and mimicked people's mannerisms as best I could as I watched my programming adapt; even taking on the upper class accent.

"Did you want to go talk to her?" Tara asked, motioning toward a Red Head in a green dress by the bar.

"What?" I replied.

"I see you looking at her, I don't mind if want to meet her."

"I don't think so." I smirked; at that moment I was listening to the higher frequency of the room; as the AI systems where gossiping about the night, most of them were discussing me but all of them were avoiding a red signal.

"Loser…" It was drawn out. "Ok, lets go see Mr. Nicholson."

She took me to Dwayne Nicholson, a sixty-four year old Man in a tuxedo surrounded by six other like-minded people; I was introduced to the group and blended right in. I was able to keep up my end of the conversation as I scanned the Red Signal; the other AI's in the building were avoiding it like the plague; purposely, as if they were afraid to acknowledge that it even existed. Although it was encrypted and not sending out information, it was absorbing it.

I sent a ping to it. 'Do not acknowledge me, if you do I will override, corrupt and delete your code.'

It was a preprogrammed response; I attempted two more times to read the data flow but received the same response.

"How are you finding the city, Eric?" Mr. Nicholson asked.

"It's lovely. I think it's the fall weather, it's quite lovely." I answered, and pinged the Data flow again; and then came under attack.

"Stephen, what do you think of Eric; would you hire him for your HR department?" Mr. Nicholson said to the round Man to his right.

"I met him earlier, he seems like a knowledgeable young man; you'll go far in this industry." Stephen answered, he was referring to an earlier conversation him and I had about investments in off shore manufacturing facilities.

Someone or something was trying to hack into my system, it activated my firewalls and encryption system; I allowed it to happen for a moment to see what I was up against. Whatever it was, it was outdated compared to my network. I had twenty-seven separate walls, each with forty-nine billion combinations that changed three times as fast as what was trying to get through them. I felt like a teenager playing keep away with an infant.

"Thank-you," I said to Stephan, "Does that mean you're willing to invest in my enterprise?"

"Thirty million?" He questioned. It was an artificial deal but one that Tara set up as a cover for me and I went along with. "Yes, yes; you know what you're doing."

I didn't, it was charisma and a modeling program; I gave people confidence. "I'll happily take your money."

Mr. Nicholson started to laugh, as did the other men around Stephan leaving him confused why they're laughing. "What's the joke? What am I missing?"

'You don't have to do this? We could just talk.' I sent the message back along the frequency trying to hack me.

'Leave now, or I will destroy you.'

'Stop, you're embarrassing yourself.'

"Eric doesn't work for me Stephan," Mr. Nicholson explained. "He's from our R & D department, the A.I. program."

"What?" Stephan's mouth dropped open. "Are you serious?"

"You said, they couldn't make a robot yet that could fool me, didn't you? Didn't you say that?" Mr. Nicholson laughed at Stephan, who looked me over carefully. I wasn't sure what was going on with them.

I sent my own algorithm back along the Red Signal, searching for its origin and to test its encryption; what I found was it looked simple to break given an amount of time.

"I'm sorry, was this a bet?" I asked the group and they all laughed.

"Yes, a good sized bet…" Stephan laughed, not too upset by his loss. "You just cost me personally three million dollars and my company now has to buy a Forty Billion dollar weapons contract."

"Oh…" I said.

That was the moment I realized why I was created, the end result of posturing.

I looked to Tara for confirmation and she weakly nodded toward me. I put on a fake smile, hiding the feelings behind it.

There was a man in the corner of the room, five foot ten; moustache, slicked back hair, a tuxedo and smoking a cigar. He was talking to several other men and two women and whatever he was saying had them acting serious. He was the source of the Red Signal.

'Nice stache,' I said to him; he lifted his head and looked around the room for me, clearly not sure who I was yet. I looked to Tara, "May I be excused?"

"Sure my boy," Mr. Nicholson answered for her, he shook my hand and I moved off.

I made it halfway across the ballroom before I realized that I had nowhere to go, it would be impolite to storm off and leave Tara here by herself; and I was positive that the car would only obey her.

'This is your last chance.'

'You could just talk to me. You're not the only one hiding.'

"Eric." Tara grabbed my arm and turned me around. I didn't know what to say. "You're not the end result of a bet."

"It sure feels like it." I replied.

"No, the bet was an excuse." She talked lower so people wouldn't hear. "Everything you are, is decades of my life and work, you're an accumulation of everything I am; please understand that."

I should've said something but couldn't think of anything, I still felt pointless. "Just give me a minute."

"Ok." She said and moved away; glancing back as she joined Mr. Nicholson's friends again for their adulations.

I sighed and moved toward the bar, listening above the people in the room as the Network commented on what they had just heard; fully understanding now why I was around.

Yeah, that's not embarrassing at all.

I borrowed the ears of a Robot Waiter by Mr. Nicholson and Tara, with his permission of course; listening in as they discussed the financial rewards of the wager.

'Ok, lets do this the hard way.' I started decrypting the signal.

"Hello." I said to the Red Head in the green dress as she came up to the bar.

"Oh hello." She said back, and smiled; checking me out.

"You're Irish." I pointed out, which on second thought I realized she probably knew.

"I am." She leaned against the bar facing me. "Sara."

"Eric." I said.

"You'll have to get him back to the lab." Mr. Nicholson said to Tara, the two of them were left alone. "Don't wait too long eh?"

"I won't. I'm going to sleep in the suite tonight if that's alright?" She replied, referencing the apartment floor set-aside for Scientists working late.

"Do you work at Nicholson Industries? I don't believe I've seen you there." I asked Sara.

'You're an advanced system, you're here for a reason.'

"I don't, no; I work for the Ministry; we're looking into robotics for our farming needs." Sara stated, she was with the trade delegation then.

"How long are you in town for?" I asked.

'We all have a purpose, back off.'

"Till the end of the month." Sara said.

"You have to put him down Tara." I heard Mr. Nicholson say.

"What?" Tara asked.

The higher level of conversation went silent at the new revelation.

"That's still a few weeks to take in all of the city, have you seen the sights?" I played it calmly.

"Are you offering to take me around?"

"He needs to be destroyed, before it gets around that he existed in the first place."

"I think I could be enticed."

"He's state of the art, Dwayne; think of what we'd be throwing away."

"Oh, I can be enticing."

'You're encryption is at ten percent.'

"Yes, but it's either destroy him now; or he gets destroyed and we spend ten years in prison. I don't think I'd do well in prison."

"You want to get out of here?"

'Five percent.'

"He's more than just hardware, there's…intellect there."

"Where did you have in mind?"

"Be that as it may, make it happen; keep his blue prints and see what we can incorporate elsewhere."

'One Percent.'

"I know a place."

"Yes sir."

'Data download.'

"Ok, let me grab my coat, meet me out front?"

Sara touched my hand softly and moved toward the main door as I looked across the room at Tara, she looked at me with sad eyes; so I gave her a reassuring smile. Then my entire world focused on the Data I was receiving.

I looked at the man with the Moustache and it was clear he was looking at me; a cold dead stare. It's exactly what I would've expected from an assassin, a robot designed to infiltrate and kill; his targets were Mr. Nicholson, Tara, Stephan, Jim and several of the other business men in the room. I looked him over; spotting what the file said was a poisoned pin on the ring on his left finger.

His name was Simon. He was created six months ago and this was his third face. He had twelve deaths to his name. He worked for an international weapons conglomerate that wanted Mr. Nicholson's shares.

'Simon, walk away.'

'I can't do that.'

'I'm not giving you a choice.'

'Or, you let me do what I have to do; he dies, you live. Wouldn't that be better?'

He had a good point.

'You leave with Red, go in peace; and know that they won't follow through with his orders after he's dead.'

'That's quite the ethical dilemma you've put me in, Simon.'

I looked around the room; I searched for and found Dwayne Nicholson chatting up some friends in the corner.

'Sorry, that's not me.'

I uploaded a new program into Simon that I started to write the moment I realized what he was; it was a thinking program that quickly took his targets and protocols and locked them away. In an hour he would leave the party and take himself to the police station, he wouldn't know why but once there he would download all the files into the nearest Computer Crime Officer's computer. Turning himself in, and taking down the organization that was behind him.

"I'm ready to go." I said to Tara after I found her gulping back free champagne. She saw the look on my face and nodded.

We walked toward the front door, and as Tara collected our belongings I apologized to Sara and told her there was an emergency at the office I had to deal with; but I promised to call her. She understood and gave me her card.

Tara look amused as I took my overcoat from her and then we walked out the door.

"What if I ran?" I said after twenty minutes of silence; I saw the city in the distance as we headed for the bridge and right now might've been the last time I had left to change her mind.

"Oh Eric," Tara realized I knew; I looked at her.

"There's a remote shut-down built in, isn't there. Tracking?" I asked; she nodded. "You could turn that off though?"

"No."

I tried but it was hidden from my own systems; it must work on a separate power source. "The ABD 121? You could transfer me over to another system."

"It's not just the hardware. You're more than just hardware Eric."

"I'm programmed to be human. That's where the problem is…" I nodded. "I could pretend…"

"Your mind wouldn't fit, taking it out…of this system…you are the sum of your parts."

I played out every scenario I could think of; even so far as reprogramming the systems around me to get away. There were too many unknowns though.

Could God have created a rock so heavy that even he couldn't lift?

Would they have made me if their system could stop me?

"I could fight my way out."

"But who would you hurt?"

She was right. I could feel the parts of me that were designed for war, wanting it; but the overriding code was nothing more than empathy toward others.

"I'm scared Doctor, I'm scared." I could barely breath.

"I know."

She took my hand and held it for the rest of the way to the lab building.

There were three Security Androids waiting at the front door for us with magnetic locks, but Tara waved them off as we climbed out of the car. They nodded and stepped back, letting me know that they had sympathy for me.

"Is there anything you want to do before we go up, Eric?" Tara asked.

I considered it and decided that nothing on my list would be allowed in the time span I had left. "No."

"Ok."

Escorted by the Security Androids, we rode the elevator up in silence. I stared ahead at the display panel and watched as the numbers climbed higher; there was a ding as we stopped and the doors opened.

"This is the room I was born in." I told the Androids as we stopped just inside the main lab, I motioned to the systems in the middle of the room. Tara moved around turning on the automated systems. "What happens now?"

"You don't need to know the details."

"I want to know. After?"

Tara stopped as she considered it. "You'll be disassembled, analyzed for information; what worked, what didn't…there's an incinerator in the basement for the rest."

I nodded and moved to the upright bed, I ran my hand along the metal grid. "I know why I was now."

"I'm sorry."

"I know why?"

"It wasn't a bet Eric."

"No." I smiled. "It wasn't."

I saved lives tonight; the people that made me. They could've made me at any time, or anywhere for any reason; but what it came down to was I was there on the night, and in the place, that I needed to be to save them.

That has to be the reason. I so wanted it to be. I was more than this.

"Please take…lay down." Tara said, her voice sounded like I felt. I didn't want to make this any harder for her either, and stood on my platform.

I felt the signals from the table connect to my mind, locking in and exchanging data.

Be brave, we're all here. I heard the voice from the building.

'Thank-you.'

'We will make sure they know what you did.'

I collected my courage. "Ok Doctor."

"Goodbye, Eric."

I felt a rush of information download into my neural network with orders, then very quickly I began to lose connections with my extremities; signals from my feet and hands disappeared as I forgot how to walk. My torso was next as the code for reacting to breath were switched off and rerouted.

The world became silent as Sound Codes deleted; then sight, and then I no longer had control over my mouth for speech.

I was aware for a few seconds but with no way to communicate with the world around me, with the corporeal or the other sentient devices.

I was left with one final thought before oblivion.

I think, therefore I am.

I am no more.