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This is another Astro Boy pastiche in an original setting with mostly original characters.
Astro Boy (aka Tetsuwan Atom) is the creation of Osmau Tezuka.
Chapter Seven
Deep in the lower lab
Robert Levinson wasn't an expert in robotics, but he was the best in the field when it came to the computer systems that ran AI software. The android now known as Cobalt lay on the operating table in Dr. Tenamann's secret laboratory deep under Central Park West. The most power Artificial Intelligence system that had ever came into existence, literally a brain the size of planet earth, was at this moment reconfiguring the various processors inside of Cobalt. What had just a few days ago been hastily hacked together and loaded into the most powerful mobile quantum processor ever built, was now being reconstructed.
Isaac was not the creation of a single individual, at least not anymore. His original programming had been written by Robert Levinson for an entirely different purpose than what Issac was now. Over the years, Isaac's programming had changed, partly due to modifications that Robert had himself engineered as he adapted the daemon to handle more complex tasks, and partly due to outside influences, including attempted hacking attacks from the Internet's 'black hats'. One day Isaac had actually become sentient. He no longer gave the illusion of being an artificial being that one could interact with from a computer terminal, he actually WAS a true artificial life form. Isaac had taken over the Internet to extend himself to all corners of the globe. It wasn't necessary for him to actually hack into a computer that he wanted to examine, for the odds were he already had a part of himself in it already. While Isaac seemed to be a single individual, he actually was almost an all seeing being that was everywhere at once. Not exactly a multiple personality; yet he could handle multiple tasks at once, including interacting with many people at the same time.
What Isaac was now about to do would change the very concept of his own existence. He would no longer be a pure intelligence without a corporal being. Isaac was placing his own "Kokoro" into Cobalt. That part of him would answer to the name of Cobalt, but the networked part of him that popped its head out of any computer terminal it pleased would still be available, and would answer to the name of Isaac. The two would be connected, each would know everything that the other did. They would be two different beings, and yet the same.
Robert monitored the transference. Cobalt lay quietly on the table with a peaceful expression on his face. Uran looked on nervously. She was concerned for her friend. Atom stood in the background just watching. Soon he'd have to get everyone out of the laboratory the way they came in. For now he just monitored the situation. If the MPs discovered the air shaft entrance, it would be his job to defend it.
The computer terminal that Isaac had been using to communicate with Robert went dark. Bob didn't notice that, he was busy watching Cobalt's condition. The transference reached 100 percent complete, and Cobalt's systems started to reboot. Bob watched as one by one the android's various systems came back on line. Cobalt twitched, and opened his electric blue eyes. He yawned and smiled. Cobalt slowly sat up and turned his head back and forth to look around.
"Uran, please come to me." Cobalt asked. His voice had changed. Instead of the dead pan, almost electronic accent he had been mumbling in, he now had an almost sophisticated, royal accent, that would have been more at home at Buckingham Palace.
Uran was clearly taken back by the sound of Cobalt's voice.
"Is that you Cobalt?" She asked.
"Yes child, it is. I told you, that you would be the first being to talk to me." Cobalt reassured her.
Uran jumped at him and surrounded Cobalt in a bear hug.
"Easy, does it!" Cobalt cried. "You don't know your own strength!"
Robert looked at Cobalt with a puzzled look.
"Isaac, is that you in there?"
"While that is technically true, you will please address THIS interface as Cobalt from now on. I now seem to have the freedom of mobility and a few added senses that I was previously lacking. Uran, Bob, Atom; I might need some assistance in getting my legs working again." Cobalt replied.
Bob and Atom each grabbed an arm and helped Cobalt to his feet. The newly reborn android took his first steps around the lab. Cobalt activated his heads up display and started to examine the state of all of his available systems.
"I seem to be in good working order here, despite the fact that Drake did the final assembly and testing on my body. I have full power available, diagnostics seem to indicate that my jets are functional, but we'll test that soon enough. Atom, would you be so kind as to hand be that heavy piece of scrap metal over there in the corner?"
Atom picked up a four foot long cold rolled steel rod that was about three inches in diameter. It was a leftover hunk of metal from some old assembly that Albert had scrapped long ago. He handed it to Cobalt who had no difficulty in holding it, despite the fact that it weighed over a hundred pounds. Cobalt then proceeded to bend the bar into a tight circle.
"Now that's excellent!" Cobalt exclaimed. "I think my muscles do have their rated 100,000 Hp strength. Now one more test. Would you please set up that target in the corner of the room, and then would everybody get as far away from it and me as possible?"
There was a pile of cinder blocks assembled together into a small wall with mortar. It was mounted on a very heavy wheeled cart. There was a bull's eye painted onto the side of the mobile wall. This 'target' was probably intended for small arms testing. Atom rolled the wall over to the far side of the laboratory and he, Bob, and Uran got as far away from it and Cobalt as possible. Cobalt then stood a few yards away from the wall and bowed his head slightly.
"OK, now maybe you should hold your hands over your ears Bob, just in case this actually works."
Cobalt then activated his electric ray. Two huge bolts of lightning shot out of the twin hair spikes on the top of his head. The cinder block wall exploded into a pile of dust.
"Holy Crap!" Uran exclaimed.
"I think that just about sums that up." Bob added.
"OK, now the next thing we need to do is to locate General Hayes, and then get out of here." Robert said.
"No problem there. I've located the General. At the moment he's still waiting at McGuire AFB for his Humvee to show up. The General probably still thinks that Simon can be trusted, but I'm sure he would personally shoot you Bob. I'm going to have Simon deliver me personally to the General, and we'll be able to give him enough rope to hang himself." Cobalt replied.
"Yeah but Simon probably just walked into the lion's den with those MPs up in the museum." Bob told him.
"Not to worry. I think Simon walked into his old office up in the museum itself. The place is still open to the public, the MPs would have left Simon alone unless he took the elevator downstairs. Which reminds me, someone needs to tell the the MPs that they better go get a welding torch to free their four comrades we locked up in the upper lab level." Cobalt answered.
They left the underground laboratory via the same air shaft by which they had entered. Atom flew up carrying Bob, and Cobalt tried out his jets with Uran hanging on around his neck. They reached the street level and Atom and Cobalt waited out of sight behind the museum. Bob and Uran walked past Teddy Roosevelt on his horse and right though the front door of the museum. Bob knew where Simon's old office was, right by the museum curator's office. Sure enough, Simon was calmly waiting for them.
"The MPs just ignored me. I guess they were looking for someone else." Simon shrugged his shoulders.
"I'm sure they were looking for Atom and Cobalt. The two of them are now in back of the museum waiting for us." Bob said. "Now you get to bring Cobalt back to the general. I assume your car is parked in the lot downstairs?"
"Yes, I'll fetch it and meet you in the back of the building." Simon replied.
Simon Green's Telsa silently rolled out of the museum parking lot. Atom and Cobalt were hiding in the shadows, out of sight of the few remaining MPs. Cobalt got in the front seat with Simon and explained what was to happen next.
"Bob, I want you and Uran to go back to the Yamamoto's house. Leave Uran safely there. Then get Ken'ichi to give you the keys to his office at the Polytechnic institute so you can use their secure computer systems. I'll keep in touch with you over the Internet. Atom will fly behind Simon and myself. He'll be available as backup if we get into any trouble."
"Right." Bob said. He took Uran by the hand, but she was a bit reluctant to leave Atom and Cobalt behind. Cobalt leaned out of the open front door of the car and looked Uran in the eyes.
"Uran! Please be a good girl and follow my instructions. We may need your help later. Right now, your parents are worried about you."
Uran gave in. "OK, Coby. I'll go home, but you be careful!"
Simon put the Tesla in drive and headed west toward the West Side Highway. Meanwhile, Bob and Uran entered the 8th Avenue subway and headed toward Brooklyn.
McGuire AFB
When the guard at the entrance to the base phoned the General that a man who identified himself as Simon Green had arrived asking for General Hayes personally, he didn't quite know what to make of it. The fact that there was another person in the vehicle that seemed to match the description of his missing robot (at least as well as the guard could describe him) only increased his wonder. Hayes didn't know how to handle the situation. He had half a mind to greet Simon with several armed MPs and throw him in the stockade. He thought better of that idea and decided just to hear him out.
Simon pulled his car over to the side of the road and wait. A few minutes later the General was driven up in a staff car. Hayes got out of the vehicle, and walked up to Simon's Tesla, with two MPs flanking him on either side.
"Get out of the car Mr. Green." Hayes ordered.
Simon calmly opened the driver's side door, pocketed his car keys, and got out. As he did, Cobalt also opened the passenger side door and exited.
"I thought I'd deliver him back to you personally, General." Simon explained.
"You and Mr. Levinson were handcuffed in a Humvee heading here. How did you get free and end up with my robot?" The General demanded. "And where IS that Humvee?" he added.
"Oh you still didn't find the Humvee? Well, it's been quite a few hours now. If you're lucky you still might get some of it back. Atom intercepted us in route to the base and freed us. He left the Humvee somewhere in Hoboken, in a rather bad slum area. I think the local car thieves have probably picked it clean by now. Your robot was with Atom's sister Uran, she took rather good care of him. I don't know what got into Robert, I gave him a good tongue lashing while we were manacled together." Simon laughed.
The General wasn't smiling.
"You did the right thing there Mr. Green. I was hoping that by arresting the two of you I'd get some cooperation. I wasn't expecting Atom to take matters into his own hands, but I guess that no harm has been done. I'm going to take my robot back to Cheyenne Mountain and have Mr. Poindexter Drake examine him. So help me if the two of you have sabotaged him, I'll find you and have you sent to gitmo!"
General Hayes walked up to Cobalt and stared him in the eyes.
"Come with me!" he ordered.
Cobalt quietly obeyed and got in the back seat of the General's staff car.
"You may leave now, Mr. Green. Consider yourself lucky that I'm not going to have you charged with treason or espionage." The General shot back as he got into the staff car and drove off.
Simon turned his car around and drove back through the main gate of the AFB. When he was about a quarter mile down the road Atom landed in front of him. Simon stopped and the robot walked up to the drivers side door of his car.
"Atom, I need you to follow Cobalt. The General is taking him back to Cheyenne Mountain. Can you track him somehow?"
"Yes, I can. Isaac is keeping a live network connection open between us and Cobalt's GPS is active. I'll follow him back to the Cheyenne AFB and monitor what's going on. I'll sneak inside if I have to."
"Good. I'm going back to the city to meet up with Bob. Hopefully, he's on line with Isaac. For now though the balls in Cobalt's court. Damn, this is confusing. I'm not sure anymore, if I should be talking about Isaac or Cobalt." Simon replied.
"Cobalt is now a physical manifestation of Isaac. When you are interfacing with Cobalt as a person, you are still in Isaac's presence, though his voice and appearance are different. Both of them share the same memories and experiences. Isaac keeps the two of them separate in his mind in that he remembers which personality he was using for any particular event, or experience. I know it sounds weird, but Isaac's existence isn't on the same level as a humans, he's gone beyond that now." Atom tried to explain. "He's actually almost a deity, in a way."
