Automan and all character names therein are owned by the American Broadcasting Company. All characters are fictional and resemblance to any persons living or dead is coincidental. No copyright infringement is intended.

Automan: Dual Core

By Sailor Chronos

Chapter 2

Later that evening, Lina paid a visit to Walter Nebicher and his wife Roxanne at their house in Maywood. They had been good friends ever since she had interned under Walter years ago at the tender age of 16, and it was thanks to them that she had become a police officer. She really hadn't wanted to disturb them today, but felt that it was important enough to tell them what she had witnessed.

After spending a short time engaged in small talk, she brought up what had been troubling her. "I was at the E3 game convention this afternoon," she began, and then lowered her voice. "Uh, where are Jack and Matthew? I'd prefer they not hear this." The couple's tween-aged sons didn't know about Walter's work-related pursuits.

"Don't worry," said Walter with a smile, waving one hand in the direction of the door to the basement. "The boys are downstairs playing Halo. They won't be bothering us."

Lina cleared her throat. "At the con, there was this young man by the name of Justin Woodruff; either in college or just out of it by the look of him. He was exhibiting an artificially intelligent hologram that he claimed could have substance."

Roxanne gasped, wide-eyed.

Walter was equally perturbed. "Did he generate it on the spot?"

"Yes, but it wasn't solid; he said he needed more power to do it, but some electrical engineer debunked the idea. He hid his reaction well, but I could see in his face that he was furious."

With a worried sigh Roxanne said, "It sounds like this kid feels that he has something to prove." She turned to Walter. "How would a hologram react to a programmer with an attitude like that?"

"Badly," he replied, frowning.

Knowing glances passed among them, and then Lina said, "Someone should hear about this."

"I'm way ahead of you," said Walter, reaching over to a side table and picking up a laptop computer. "Let's just see how well my new network works..." He flipped open the laptop, launched a web browser and initiated a search. In another window he brought up a prompt.

AUTOMAN
ENTER ACCESS CODE
CRIMEFIGHTER
ACCESS AUTHORIZED

The room shivered slightly. In the background Lina could hear a generator outside rev up in response to an increase in power load. After a few seconds, a bright multi-faceted ball of light emerged from the laptop screen. "Hello, Cursor!" Walter greeted it. It twittered at him, then whizzed over to both Roxanne and Lina in turn, brushing against their cheeks affectionately. Finally it streaked to an open space and spiralled downward toward the floor. In that space formed Walter's greatest creation and best friend: a tall handsome man with short blond hair parted to the right, wearing blue grid-like armour that shone with the light of hundreds of tiny stars.

"Hello, Walter. Hello, Roxanne," Automan said in a rich baritone voice. "And hello, Lina. It's good to see you." He walked over to where they were sitting. "To what do I owe the pleasure?"

Lina explained to him what she had seen at the convention.

Automan was momentarily stunned, a reaction that was quite unusual for him. "This means that I have a... brother. I'm no longer unique."

"We all knew that eventually someone would do it," said Lina. "We'd like to be happy for you, Auto, but let's look more closely at this; there might be something more to it."

"Very well," Automan conceded. "According to records, Justin Woodruff recently graduated UCLA with honours in computer science and electrical engineering. Academically he is brilliant, although two years ago he was disciplined for allegedly plagiarizing a fellow student's work, and lost credit."

"I don't know about you," said Roxanne with a thoughtful look, "but I don't like this one bit."

"Why not?" asked Automan.

Walter explained, "You need to understand how many young people these days think. They can believe themselves to be smart, that they know more than everyone else in their chosen field, or nothing bad can happen to them. But they lack the life experience to know their own limitations or fully understand the consequences of their actions."

Lina nodded. "Consider this, Auto: you are the way you are because Walter programmed his own ideals into your base code. From what I could tell, Woodruff has a very angry outlook. With a creator like that, a hologram with abilities similar to yours could be capable of terrible things."

"That is indeed an unpleasant thought," Automan said, looking worried. "Perhaps we should try to talk to him."

"One of US should talk to him," insisted Walter, meaning the three humans in the room. "From what Lina said, Woodruff seems to think that he's the only one to have succeeded in creating this type of hologram. What do you think his reaction will be if he sees you and realizes that there has already been one in existence for nearly twenty years?"

"He doesn't have to see me," noted Auto, and straightened to his full height. "Cursor!" he commanded, and Cursor immediately whirled around his body to create a white casual shirt, dark blue jeans, and a light brown suede jacket. Only a glowing blue stripe around the inside of his collar gave any indication of his nature. Then Cursor added a final touch: an ID tag for the convention pinned to his lapel, bearing the name Otto J. Mann.

Lina threw her hands up into the air, defeated. "All right, but please stay out of trouble. Walter," she turned to her friend, "may I call Automan from home if necessary?"

Auto leaned over, put his arm around her shoulders and spoke in her ear with a Tom Selleck drawl, "You can call me any time."

Roxanne giggled and Walter rolled his eyes. Lina snorted and clarified, "I just don't want to call you away from any cases that you and Walter might be working on."

"It's okay," said Walter. "We don't have anything major in the works right now. He's all yours."


"There's something that you're not saying," said Automan once they were on the road in the Autocar. "Your blood pressure was up."

Lina sighed. Sometimes there was a downside to his ability to detect vital signs by touch. "Can't keep anything from you, can I? Yes, there is something else, but I didn't want to mention it in front of Walter." She told him about the case she had been given. "When I saw the colours on Woodruff's hologram, I considered the possibility that he was using it for those thefts. But there's no way to prove that without actually catching him in the act."

"All the more reason for me to see this," he said grimly. "I don't like the thought of a hologram being used for crime."

There were fewer people in the convention center at this late hour, but the display area was still open. Lina led Auto to Woodruff's booth, where he was just finishing his last demonstration. The purple accented hologram was still active, observing the people who passed by. While Automan watched discreetly from the sidelines, Lina approached the young man.

"Good evening, Mr. Woodruff," she said genially. "I saw your demo earlier and wanted to congratulate you on your work. That program of yours is amazing."

He smiled, and she didn't miss the 'I deserve recognition' sneer. "Thank you, Ms. Baines," he said after glancing at her name tag. "I've created a unique 3D electro-magnetic construct. Those virtual reality games you might have seen over there," he waved in the general direction of another game display, "are nothing like it. This brings the computer game into the real world instead of the other way around."

"What sort of game are you planning?" she asked. "Superheroes? Crime fighting, perhaps?"

The young man chuckled. "I'll let him answer that," he said, indicating the translucent figure.

"My programming is very flexible," said the hologram; his voice was a few tones deeper but less resonant than Automan's. "I can allow a user to create an alter-ego, as it were. If you want the perfect friend, for example, I can be that."

She pretended to be surprised. "Wow, that's an accomplishment," she said, addressing both of them. "Good luck with your game." With a cheery wave she turned and left, knowing that Auto would follow when he had observed everything to his satisfaction.