I.S.A.A.C.

Author's Note:
My very first five Astro fan fiction stories were set in a universe of my own making. These stories were written a few years ago, and they are still up on this site if anybody wants to go read them for the first time.

I had invented a new set of characters and set the stories in New York City rather than in Japan. Atom became a real robot in the real world and Tezuka's manga faded into the background as a fiction that was known to the characters in my stories. (In fact Tezuka himself was in the first story which actually began prior to the start of the second world war).

One of the most unusual characters in this series of stories wasn't even a corporal being, but rather a disembodied intelligence. Isaac was a computer program who looked after Atom and the other characters. I'll now bring him back for another go.

This first chapter will sum up the events that have happened since we last left Atom and company at the end of #119 …..

Introduction

The hacker knew he was on to something by the level of security that he had to breach to get as far as he did. For every level closer to the core of this network he got the more he was challenged and misdirected. At first he'd tried to crack his way into the U.S. military's secret laboratory, and buried deep within their layers of encryption and aliases, he'd found a well hidden link to a site he'd yet to figure out. It did seem to have many hidden storage vaults, very possibly full of wonderful secrets. The hacker had so far managed to avoid the numerous honey pots scattered about the domain, which only whetted his appetite. He looked out the window to realize from the growing deep ruby color at the horizon that he'd spent yet another full night absorbed in the pursuit. He sighed and saved his work on a flash drive before shutting down the computer. With any luck he might be able to get a few hours sleep before he'd have to leave for school. Good thing there was plenty of 'Red Bull' in the 'fridge for breakfast.

Uran yawned and looked out the window of her bedroom. The sun had just started to peek above the horizon and the sparrows in the tree just under her window were happily chirping loudly to greet the new day. She opened the window and poked her head out to get a better view. Two younger birds who had just learned how to fly saw her and flew up to land on the top of her head. "Well good morning to you!", Uran smiled, reaching up with her hands as the sparrows gladly perched upon her index fingers. She walked over to her dresser where the birds hopped from her hands to the top of a mirror sitting there. Uran bent over to open the bottom drawer where she had hidden a few slices of stale bread. She grabbed one of them and crumbled it up in her hands and offered the bread crumbs to her guests. The two sparrows sat on her wrist and began to peck at the food.

"That tickles!" Uran laughed as she watched the birds eat their fill. Suddenly, the mother bird in the tree below began to chip loudly, and the two nestlings flew from Uran's hand towards the window.

"See you tomorrow!" Uran laughed, as she wrapped the remaining bread up in the paper sack and hid it in the bottom dresser drawer again.

Cobalt and Atom shared a bed in the middle bedroom of the apartment. The room used to be a den, but after Uran and Cobalt had joined the Yamamoto family Sachiko had decided that her new daughter needed her own room and Atom was moved out of the empty bedroom to share the den with his new brother. Of course it meant that Sachiko lost her sewing room, and Ken'ichi had lost his hobby room, for that was how the couple had been using the den. Neither of them minded, they now shared a small table they had moved into the corner of the master bedroom for their recreational activities.

Cobalt looked to be a year or two older than Atom. He had been rescued from the military about the same time that Dr. Tenamann had built Uran as prototype for a Japanese project to supply home care robots for that countries aging population. Officially Uran was on 'loan' to the Yamamotos for 'evaluation', but there was no doubt of the fact that she was now part of Atom's family. Both Cobalt and Uran had been programmed by Tenamann and computer expert Robert Levinson to be siblings to Atom, and perfect offspring for the aging couple fostering them.

Atom now appeared to be a normal 13 year old male child, just entering puberty. Uran was built in the image of an 8 year old girl, while Cobalt who was almost a head taller than his brother, appeared to be in his mid teens. Cobalt and Atom shared many abilities in common. Both had tremendous strength capable of 100,000 horse power, and the ability to fly using ionic jet engines in their legs, Cobalt also had such engines in his arms as well. While the older looking boy lacked his younger brother's arm laser, he did have the ability to generate huge electrical discharges from the spikes of his 'hair'. Both robot boys had super hearing, and the ability to see in near darkness. Both also had powerful searchlights built into their eyes. All of that hardware had been developed for the military, a role that Ken'ichi was glad they were not now serving.

Robert Levinson entered his computer lab holding a one pint coffee mug filled to the brim with Starbucks java in his right hand and a large gaming style laptop tucked under his left arm, while he kicked the door open with his left foot. The room lights came on automatically as he entered, Bob set the heavy computer down on the desk while swallowing a large gulp of the still hot beverage. Other than the sound of a gentle breeze coming out of the air conditioner vents in the ceiling, and a soft whine of the fans cooling the electronics in the computer racks, the noise level in the room was rather low, quiet enough in fact for the 60hz buzz of the ballast transformers in the overhead florescent fixtures to be audible.

Bob opened the clamshell case of his custom portable computer and the machine exited the sleep mode that it had been in since Robert had left his apartment to commute to work on his electric bicycle. Levinson's apartment in the loft of a converted 19th century warehouse building several miles in the downtown direction from the Museum building was an easy summer's commute by 'cycle, but when the weather was less suitable for such transportation Bob would resort to the 8th Avenue subway.

He fished a mouse out of his upper desk drawer and plugged it into the computer just as the machine had automatically connected to the WIFI. The first order of business was to check his email which was only a few mouse clicks away.

"My, you're quiet today," Bob voiced, apparently to nobody.

"Hello Bob," came the reply from a disembodied electronic sounding voice with just a hint of a British accent.

"Good, Morning Issac." Bob said without taking his eyes off of the computer screen. "What took you? You usually show your ugly face on my laptop just as soon as it boots."

Isaac was a computer program that lived in the various computers making up the laboratory network. He'd originally started out many years ago as a simple daemon which replaced the background shell of Bob's primary computer. Isaac had been an intelligent user interface that could interact with a human on a verbal level using both speech synthesis and voice recognition. He'd grown far beyond that, and was now a networked entity living in the internet. Most of his functions still resided in the various mainframe computers in the lower level of the complex deep beneath the American Museum of Natural History, but when necessary Isaac could spread his tendrils into computers all over the world.

"We've had an uninvited guest again overnight," Isaac replied. "I've been keeping him busy."

"Were you able to locate him?" Bob asked.

"I have a pretty good idea where he is," Issac replied. "Crafty little stinker, seems to know where we've planted the honey pots and other booby traps. His IP spoofing is pretty good, and it seems he wants us to think that he's either in China or Korea."

"Nothing new there." Bob laughed. "Well just keep an eye out for him and guard the family jewels."

"Of course." Isaac replied. "Anything else?"

Bob quickly paged though the overnight email backlog. "I've got a few projects ready to start up, but I need to do some more reading of the requirements documents. I'll get with you after lunch on that."

"Sure thing Robert." Isaac answered, "By the way, I've just detected Mr. Green's automobile pulling into his parking spot."

"Thanks for the warning," Levinson laughed. "Talk to you later."

Simon Green stepped out of his Tesla Model X sedan and walked toward the elevator. The sleek gull wing doored vehicle was an early beta prototype that Elon Musk had personally delivered to the head of the secret think tank. Simon and Elon had been on a first name basis ever since the incident at the ISS where Atom had rode one of the first Dragon space ships up to orbit after the station had been damaged by debris from an exploded Russian cold war weapons platform.

Hidden in the corner of the Museum's parking garage was what looked like an electrical closet, but was really the doorway to a high speed elevator that went downward to the subterranean headquarters of one of the most secret think tanks in the country.

The facility was actually built in the early 20th century with funds contributed by various industrialists who were worried about the possible rise to power of unfriendly forces in Europe and Asia. Their fears were well founded as the events leading up to the second world war well illustrated. Over the years the think tank had served many different purposes, today it was a civilian run organization doing mostly theoretical research with some of the most powerful computers on the planet. Its RAD and EMP hardened interior housed a data store larger than what was available to the Pentagon or Area 51. There were also facilities for the prototyping of all sorts of mechanical and electrical innovations, though most of those were now little used since the man who had been in charge of that sector had resigned from the think tank.

While Dr. Albert Tenamann had handed in his resignation and had 'retired' to live in Japan, his presence in the think tank was still noticed. Most of the current facility had been designed with his input, and under his direction. He often teleconferenced with Bob and Simon when his expertise was required on a current problem.

The laboratory at the lowest level of the complex had been Tenamann's domain, it was here that the boy super robot, Atom, had been designed and constructed. Tenamann had been working on a military android soldier when enemy agents tried to steal the design by kidnapping him or his son Adam. While Adam lay in a coma following a traffic accident which was the result of the boy trying to escape from capture by those after his father, Albert destroyed the original military android prototype in a fit of rage. Then he redirected his anger by reconstructing that prototype to resemble his dying son. The resulting robot had its electronic brain loaded with Adam's mind dump, and the result was Atom. Happily, Adam eventually recovered thanks to the skill of an unorthodox surgeon from Japan. Adam and his father then left the US to live in Japan where Albert now works on robotics at the Japanese Ministry of Science.

Ken'ichi and Sachiko Yamamoto were drinking their morning tea when Uran made it into the kitchen, followed by Atom and Cobalt.

"Ohayō," Sachiko smiled upon seeing the three robotic children enter the room.

"Ohayō," they replied while taking seats at the table.

Sachiko got up and opened the refrigerator to remove a pitcher containing an oil-water mixture that the three of them drank for cooling and lubrication. Being robots they didn't require human food, but they were able to digest it in small amounts. Atom had long ago developed a fondness for pizza, something that was beginning to rub off on Cobalt. Uran would have none of that, but she did love to slowly melt chocolate in her mouth, something her foster mother readily understood.

Atom gulped down his glass of oil and water, and then quickly donned his backpack. It was a school day and he never wanted to be late. Uran and Cobalt had the additional requirement of refueling themselves. While Atom was now powered by a vacuum energy canister that in theory would never run out, his siblings still used the Helium2 fuel that he had originally been powered by. Their fuel cartridges had to be replenished periodically. Each of those was the size of one of those old fashioned CO2 cartridges that had been used in BB guns and quart sized soda makers. Uran and Cobalt helped each other install a new fuel cell before they headed towards the door to join their brother.

Each of the three siblings were in different schools and grades, Atom was in his last year at David A. Boody middle school while Cobalt was attending Lincoln High School. Uran was in th PS216 elementary school. Atom's identity as a robot had been a secret until the previous year when had become a national hero by saving the astronauts up on the International Space Station. It hadn't made a difference at school, Atom's friends quickly accepted him for what he was and still liked him as much as before. Uran and Cobalt had no difficulty being accepted in their school environments either, Atom had paved the way for them.

Ken'ichi Yamamoto had a light class load that morning and didn't head off to work until after his adopted children had left for school. Ken'ichi was a professor at the Polytechnic Institutes's Brooklyn campus on Jay Street. He walked towards McDonald Avenue where he boarded the "F" train of the IND subway. The line was elevated at this point and ran through half of Brooklyn before submerging under the streets at Church Avenue. The line again became elevated briefly to cross the Gowanus Canal before reaching the Jay Street station where Professor Yamamoto got off. Ken'ichi rather enjoyed the subway trip to the Institute every day. The El offered a wonder view of the borough, and while crossing over the canal one could see the Manhattan skyline and the Statue of Liberty in the distance.

Cora Smith had a crush on Atom ever since the first day she'd bumped into him on the boy's first day at school. Of course Mike Finkle the class bully had a hand in that too. Atom had stood up to the brute who was a good head taller than him to protect Cora. Then there had come the day when Finkle had snuck up to the roof of Cora's apartment building when she was sunbathing topless up there. Mike chased her around and she slipped on a slippery patch of wet asphalt and fell over the low knee wall on the edge of the roof.

With his sharp hearing, Atom heard her cries for help from several blocks away from inside his bedroom facing Cora's building. The boy robot flew the short distance at supersonic speed, blasting out of his bedroom window like a shell from a 24 inch naval cannon. Atom caught Cora in midair and gently returned her to the roof. There was no hiding what he was from the girl however. Cora didn't care if Atom was a robot, at that point she'd have loved him even if he was a Martian.

Cora's dad was a motorman for the New York City Transit system, usually assigned to the "N" or "D" lines. She loved riding in the motorman's cab with her dad, especially during the run over the Manhattan Bridge. It took great skill to handle a fully loaded ten car train over the steep incline of the century old suspension span, and Cora was proud of her father's ability to control the subway train crossing the bridge.

Cora waved to Atom as the two of them entered the school building and went their separate ways to their home rooms. She knew that he would be waiting by the exit to walk her home at the end of the school day, as he always did.

Cobalt had been built by the military at a secret base deep under the Cheyenne mountains. He was built from the very same design that Albert Tenamann had used for Atom, but he'd been scaled up a bit to look like a recruit fresh out of high school. Cobalt's A.I. had been modified several times since Poindexter Drake had attempted to activate him using code stolen from one of Isaac's honey pots. For a brief while his electronic brain held Isaac's own persona, but shortly before he'd been given to the the Yamamotos as a big brother to Atom, Albert Tenamann and Bob Levinson had replaced that with a unique Kokoro. Atom suspected that his creator had made a copy of his own mind as the basis for Cobalt's current personally. It made sense because his older brother was certainly brilliant.

Cobalt was, in fact, at the top of his class at Lincoln H.S. Mr. Issacson, the head of the physics and science departments, had already told him that he expected him to be admitted easily to M.I.T. if he chose to go there. Cobalt was on the debating team, the chess club, and he was the president of the Astronomy club. He sometimes hung out in the Physics laboratory prep room with Mr. Williams where he helped keep the supplies in order. The cigar smoking old man who loved Beethoven, but hated Lenard Bernstein, often teased Cobalt by telling 'robot' jokes behind his back, not realizing that the boy's ears were super sharp and he heard everything the old man said. Cobalt didn't care, he wasn't offended by anything and actually thought the old man was funny.

Uran had been designed to be a health care support robot, in the form of a pre-adolescent child. Albert Tenamann had programmed her to be both a sister to Atom, and a daughter to Sachiko Yamamoto, taking some of Sachiko's brain patterns as a basis for her A.I. Uran was a tomboy, and not afraid of very much. She also loved animals, and even had the ability to understand them, and make herself understood by them. Birds would fly down from the trees to roost on her fingers at her command, and ferocious dogs would walk up to her with their tails wagging. She was even able to hand feed lions at the zoo (which nearly gave the zoo keeper a heart attack the first time she tried that!)

She now happily bounded up the steps of public school 216 and followed the crowd of other students on the way toward her class room.

Bob Levinson finished off the last cold dregs of his morning coffee just as his desk phone began to buzz. "That would be Simon asking to see you in his office," Isaac's electronic voice replied in a subdued northern London accent.

"Thank's Isaac," Bob laughed as he left the laboratory without answering the phone.

Simon looked up when he heard the soft knock on his door. "Good morning Bob," he deadpanned, "How did you know I wanted to see you, you never picked up the phone?"

"Isaac clued me in." Robert replied.

"Yes, I should have guessed that. Take a seat, we have a guest this morning."

Bob had already noticed the gentlemen in the blue Air Force uniform sitting on the right hand side of his supervisor. He bit his lip to hold back anything that he was inclined to say out of habit and simply nodded to the General as he took the chair on the left side of Simon's desk.

"General Hayes has a new project for us," Simon explained.

The two star General smiled and got up from his seat and walked towards Robert. "Good morning Mr. Levinson," General Hayes said, offering his had to Robert to shake.

Bob ignored the General's out stretched hand and merely gave him a sloppy salute. "Good morning sir," he replied.

Hayes ignored Robert's gestures and turned his gaze toward Simon. "I'm here because we have need of Mr. Levinson's services, or rather those of his alter ego."

"Who?" Simon asked.

"I assume you are referring to Isaac," Levinson stated.

"Yes, your cybernetic disembodied spirit," the General continued. "It seems that the Air Force has given up on the idea of building robot soldiers to take over the duties of our enlisted men. It's actually cheaper to simply put some A.I. into our existing hardware. The problem of course, is to develop a suitable self aware intelligence. It occurred to me that several good examples of such already exist, and your Isaac is probably the most advanced of them all. We'd like you to adapt Isaac to serve our requirements. At this very moment we have several drone fighter aircraft being converted to suit a prototype for this very purpose. How soon can you be ready to work on it?"

Bob hesitated for a moment, shifting his gaze between Simon and the General. Finally, he spoke.

"I'll need to look over your requirements specifications, the hardware manuals for the aircraft control interfaces, and then consult with Isaac to get his recommendations," Bob explained. "I can start on that as soon as you get me the required information."

"Excellent!", General Hayes exclaimed. "I've anticipated your response and you should have everything that you need within the hour."

With that, the General picked let himself out of the office, closing the door behind him slowly.

"Thank's for keeping a civil tongue," Simon sighed. "I know there has been some bad blood between the General and us."

"That's putting in mildly," Bob huffed. "I'm not sure who put him up to the idea of using Isaac's A.I. as a basis for his drone project, but I'm actually glad to do it."

"You surprise me," Simon said, "I was sure that you'd be against militarizing Isaac."

"You're right, the thought does rub me the wrong way," Bob agreed, "However I'd much rather have Isaac behind the trigger of a fleet of attack aircraft than something another one of their brainless hackers might dream up. We don't need a bunch of terminators flying over us!"

"Yeah, I see your point," Simon laughed.