The Roderick-47X

Felicity. I had long endured the injuries and loss of income she and her corporation has caused me, but not until she dared to insult my practices did I plan retribution. In my lengthy planning phase, I never once gave Felicity the slightest indication or threat of revenge. Oh, I would be avenged; of this I had no second thoughts or misgivings. However, the planning process took time and patience, as it could in no way cause harm or risk to me. I must avenge with no threat of equal punishment.

Please understand: nothing I would say or do in my strategic plotting would warn Felicity of her fate. Nothing would arouse her suspicion or cause her to feel mistrust in me in any way. I continued to greet her affectionately and smile upon meeting her, and she had no reason to believe that my smiles were in anticipation of my coming retaliation.

Although well respected in the robotics industry, and even feared by some, Felicity had her weakness. She believed, above all of our colleagues, that she alone held the key to sentient artificial intelligence. Like most engineers at Prospero Robotics, she was quite the virtuoso when it came to crafting cyborgs. I have no qualms about addressing her as such, because like Felicity, I was adept at humanoid robotics and had also long been toiling towards creating the first sentient cyborg.

I ran into Felicity one evening during the National Robotics Conference held annually in Silicon Valley. She had obviously been partaking in Product M, clear to me by her exuberant greeting. As the conference falls close to Halloween, she was dressed in a brightly colored costume similar to the circus clowns of the 20th and 21st centuries. I had been hoping to encounter Felicity at such a time as this, and I practically removed her arm from shaking her hand.

"Felicity, honey! I am so glad to see you, and you look fantastic! But I have in my possession what I was told was a Roderick-47X, and I'm not really sure that's what it is."

"What? An R-47X? No way! Especially not during the Conference."

"I'm not sure", I said, "But I did pay a great deal for it. I should have asked you to check it out first but I couldn't find you, and I didn't want to miss the opportunity!"

"An R-47X!"

"I told you, I'm not sure."

"An R-47X!"

"I need your opinion."

"A RODERICK-47X!"

"It looks like you are pretty busy, I can go ask Jesara."

"Jesara…she wouldn't know an R-47X if it bit her in the ass."

"People say she's as knowledgeable as you are…"

"Come on!"

"Where?"

"Where do you think? Wherever you're storing the damn thing!"

"It's in the abandoned warehouse down the road from my lab…but no, sweetie. That's very nice of you, but I don't want to bother you during the conference and the party…"

"It's no bother, I don't have any plans. Let's go!"

"No Felicity, it's not about your plans…it's just that the road to the storage house is an old one, and there are still some trees in that area. I know you are older than me, and born without immunity to trees."

"I don't care, let's go. I'm not worried about my tree allergy! I think you've been fooled; there is no way you bought an R-47X. And don't even think about calling Jesara…she wouldn't know a Roderick-47X from a Moskoe-17."

Felicity grabbed me by the arm and proceeded to spur me on toward my laboratory. I quickly grabbed the fur cape and wolf's mask that was my Halloween costume, and put them on.

No one was working in the lab that night. Although several were on the schedule, I had told them I wouldn't be working tonight due to the conference but that they should stay and continue our work. I knew that, knowing I would be away, they would choose to attend the Halloween parties instead. I was correct.

As it was almost full dark outside, I grabbed two flashlights from the drawer and handed one to Felicity. I unlocked the long-unused back door and began to lead her down the abandoned road to the warehouse. She was staggered from the effects of the Product M, and her clown shoes squeaked. "Where is the Roderick model?" she asked.

"It's farther down this old road, but as you can see, there are tall plants growing on either side of the path."

She looked at me with dilated pupils from her M high. "Trees?" She finally asked. "Trees", I said. "I see you are scratching your arms." She was scratching so ferociously that it took her a couple of moments to respond. "It's nothing."

"Alright sweetie, let's go back. I can't be responsible for putting you in the hospital for your tree allergy. Your colleagues will miss you; the robotics industry would not be the same if you were laid up for weeks. I can always call Jesara…"

"Jesara is a fucking idiot! This scratching is no big deal, my tree allergy won't kill me."

"True. That's true", I replied. Here, let's take some M…this will help the scratching." I grabbed two soaked cloths from my pocket and proceeded to wrap them around our wrists, exposing the drug into our bloodstreams.

We continued to walk, and growing more intoxicated, Felicity noted that the road was long and that the company grounds were quite large.

"My family's company, Kenzi Incorporated, owns quite a bit of land in Silicon Valley". "What's your company's logo again?" she asked.

"The logo depicts a Human arm building a robotic machine, with the arm of the machine in turn building a more sophisticated Humanoid robot".

Felicity laughed at this, and I too was growing happier as the Product M coursed through my veins. We continued farther along the tree lined path, the trees growing denser by the minute. I grabbed Felicity and pointed this out to her. "See the number of trees increasing as we walk? We are about a mile away from the lab now, and it's not too late to turn back. We have to see to your itching."

"Don't worry about my itching!" she ejaculated. "We've already come a mile, let's keep on. First we should take some more M, though."

I placed the cloth again on her wrist and as the drugs took effect, she laughed wildly and spun around in an odd sort of dance. I gave her a strange look.

"You don't get it?"

"No…what's wrong with you?" I replied.

"Well, if you don't get it…you must not be one of us!"

"One of 'us' who"? I asked.

"The League…the League of Sentient Humanoids, of course!"

"Oh the League, yes of course I am."

"You? No way, Kenzi. You aren't in the League."

"Yes I am!"

"Well, prove it…give me a sign, and not the move I just did!"

I hesitated. "This, here's your sign!" I produced from my pocket a length of Dupin wire.

"Wow, I had no idea," she said. "Anyway, let's keep going. I have to see this R-47X!"

"If you say so." I put the wire back into my pocket and put my arm around Felicity, who was becoming quite off-balance from the M. We continued on for another half a mile or so, deeper into the woods. Finally, we came upon a structure half-hidden in the dense vegetation. The building was painted the green color of the trees, and very spacious. The door lock, although ancient, still guarded the warehouse and opened with my key. We walked in and shone our flashlights around the large room. The four walls were piled high with boxes…boxes full of long-ago broken machines and obsolete technology. No one had disturbed this room in quite some time…no one except for yours truly, that is. The crates were piled side by side and on top of each other, creating four walls of their own within the walls of the warehouse. There was only one disturbance, other than the entryway, in the neat stacking of boxes: an opening created between two crates where a middle crate was missing.

Felicity walked towards this opening and shined her flashlight inside, but the old-fashioned battery was dying and her light could not penetrate the blackness of the recess's interior.

"Go on in…that's the box where I stored the Roderick-47X," I prompted her.

She teetered forward into the opening in her drug-induced haze, and I followed close behind. At the back of the wall, in the floor, lay a locking plate. Felicity unwittingly stepped onto this. She spun around to face me, and I quickly pressed the button on my belt that activated the plate, rendering her immobile.

"Look around", I said. "We are in the middle of the woods, and these walls are partially rotted through. The pollen from the trees has permeated this place. Are you SURE you don't want to go back? No? I better leave then. But first, let me make sure you are entirely comfortable."

"The R-47X!" she yelled, still in shock from the turn of events.

"True. The R-47X".

While saying this, I opened a crate adjacent to the niche in which Felicity was currently entrapped. Inside I found the items I had placed there earlier: more Dupin wire, a vesparing iron, and various other tools.

I began with her feet. The wiring did not take as long as I had anticipated, and found that within a short period of time I had worked my way to her kneecaps. Although only a short while had passed, I could tell that that the majority of the Product M had worked its way out of her bloodstream. I could tell this by the low moans she uttered: they were not the moans of a woman high on M. After the moans, there came a long silence as I continued my skilled work, deftly wielding the vespar that turned skin and bone into metal and wire. Although the Product D I had secretly added to Felicity's cloth had rendered this process painless, and the subject nearly motionless, I could hear faint, stubborn scratching upon the walls of the crates to either side. I pondered at this tenacious movement from one who should be almost entirely docile, and paused in my work so that I could devote my full attention to this noise, and enjoy it more fully.

When the scratching had ceased, I continued my painstaking wiring and vesparing until I had worked up to the shoulders of my creation. I paused again to shine my flashlight onto the figure frozen in place on the locking plate. Suddenly and without warning, shrill screams emitted from her mouth which sent me reeling backwards on my heels. I pulled a gun from my belt and brandished it at the figure between the crates, but upon seeing most of the flesh transformed to a grayish solid, I holstered my weapon and felt calmed. As the screams continued, I replied in kind, echoing the shrill sounds and surpassing them in volume. Finally, the screams were silenced.

It was midnight. I was almost finished. I had completed the transformation beyond the shoulders, to the neck and face. The last task to be performed, the rewiring of the creature's brain, was all that remained. The creature would remain immobile and silent, but still quite sentient. As I reached for my vesparing iron, a low, strange laugh echoed about the crates and warehouse walls. The laugh was so eerie, so desperate, that had I not known the source, I would never have guessed that it belonged to the well-respected Felicity.

"Ha ha! Oh my God…that's hilarious. This is a really good joke. A fantastic Halloween prank! I can't wait to tell everyone at the conference about it. Everyone will have a good laugh! But it's pretty late…shouldn't we be getting back to the party? They will be wondering where we are. Come on, this is over."

"Yes," I said. "It's over."

"FOR THE LOVE OF SCIENCE, KENZI!"

"Yes," I said, "for the love of science."

My words were met with no reply. Impatiently, I called out, "Felicity!"

No response. I called again, "Felicity!"

Still no response. I felt sick…it must have been because of all the trees surrounding the place. Despite my supposed immunity, I needed to leave in a hurry. I quickly completed the re-wiring of the brain and closed the gap by dragging over it another crate. I left the warehouse and locked the door behind me. Fifty years later…no person has since entered the abandoned building.

In pace requiescat!