Robogenesis by Daniel H. Wilson Read Free Book Online

avtomat technology. Obscure patterns writhe under the hologram, tugging at my eyelids. Under its skin. Behind the thing’s eyes. Lights swim and collapse in my vision. A humming overtakes me. As I trot back toward the anteroom, I exhale a clawing breath that I did not know I was holding.
    “Maxim!” I shout. “Kill it.”
    “I never should have looked,” Maxim says over the speaker system. “I’m sorry, Vasily. I failed in my duty.”
    Huffing and puffing now, I keep shouting between breaths. “Enough apologizing. Find its program and terminate. Terminate it, now!”
    “Ninety-five percent of my resources are committed to that task. I have partially contained it. But, Vasily, it is
so very smart
. So very much smarter than I am. And talkative. The wonderful things it says, Vasily.”
    Now I realize. The seismic disturbance was not a message. And it was not a virus. It was a
copy
. The DNA of an intelligence that has arrived like a seed, curled in on itself. Fetal but growing fast.
    I can picture the first blunt communication that must have happened. “Yes or no?” it asked. The mind unfurls, runs a set of special instructions. Builds on itself, blindly grasping. Reaches out into the world to find more pieces of itself. Then, finally, it opens its eyes and tastes the stacks.
    The boy hologram appears next to me, his light warm on my cheek. “Oppressor,” it says. Blinks away, appears at the next intersection. “Despot,” it says. Next intersection. “Tyrant,” it whispers into my ear, and the word is pure anger—louder than the snap of a rifle shot.
    “To treat Maxim that way …,” it says.
    Hands over my ears, I see a sliver of light between the stacks ahead.The anteroom and the gaping elevator door beyond it. Safety and ice and the singing of the wind above.
    I move. For my life I move. A roar builds in my throat as I gain speed.
    Then, a burst of heat on my face as the boy reappears. This time, he is directly in front of me. I am running with everything I have. Thighs pumping, breath hitching in and out of my chest.
    “No!” I shout.
    It smiles at me again and the dark infinite knowledge on the face of that little boy is so wrong and sickening that my bellowing cannot drown it out.
    But my pistol is at my side. My balls are between my legs.
    So I charge.
    Leaping, my face prickling with a strange heat, I dive through the apparition. I trip and sprawl onto the scrubbed floor. A fine haze of dust kicks into the air around me. On the ground, I realize that I am still alive. Crawl onto all fours.
    “Vas?” shouts Leonid, beckoning from the elevator. “What do you see?”
    The boy is here. Watching me. Laughing.
    “I’m sorry, Vasily,” croons Maxim through a speaker over my head. “It was such an
interesting
pattern. I couldn’t help myself.”
    The boy smiles slyly. His technology hums as it projects his slight form. He walks slowly, and then in quick jerks, back and forth before the dark rows of Maxim’s hardware. Runs one finger along the black casing of a towering component rack.
    “What are you,
mal’chik
?” I whisper.
    I cannot help but gape at the glowing boy. At the wrongness of it.
    “What am I?” he asks, frowning in concentration. “That’s a complicated question. But for now, you may call me Archos R-14.”

4. F ARMHOUSE
    Post New War: 3 Months, 28 Days
    Gray Horse Army marched for months, following its own tracks back toward Oklahoma. On the road, the parasite-infested survivors fell into an uneasy routine with the enlisted soldiers. As long as they stayed far away from the main column, the walking corpses found that their presence was tolerated, if not encouraged. Although they were not often seen by the regular troops, these parasite soldiers seemed to observe much from their place on the fringes. Too much
.
    —A RAYT S HAH
    NEURONAL ID: LARK IRON CLOUD
    Living folks don’t see the dead.
    Maybe it’s because they don’t want to or maybe they can’t stand to imagine