David's
Legacy
by Joshua
Falken
An A.I. -Artificial Intelligence AU fanfic
Thanks to Ista Dreamer and Matrixrefugee for beta-read this chapter :-)
Chapter 2 - Malfunctions
In an infinite and dark place, illuminated by the gigantic towers of Cybertronics Corporation's data, something... somebody... a consciousness tried to raise again from the chaos.
This consciousness was divided in two stars of intense bright, two nuclei that rotated one around the other. One of the stars had its right to exist in a moment of awakening for tenderness and love. The another, in another moment of awakening, but of rage and hate. Those opposites were united for a fine current of light made of dream and despair.
Trillions of fragments of memory orbited around, trying to fit into one of them.
Once in a while, some data transmission passed exactly through that locale, interacting and modifying itself. The effects of those interactions began spreading through CyberINCON, in the same way that the waves generate by a stone that falls in a calm lake...
== == ==
The screaming neon lights calmly won the competition with the starlight in the night sky without a moon over Rouge City. A fog began to form. A tall blond man, with flashy clothes and attractive face was leaving a small hotel when he met a tall dark-haired woman, clad in dark skintight clothes and walking with a seductive gait. They recognized each other immediately. They worked for the same company.
"Hey, Jane, what's the game?"
"Hey, Flash, where's the crash?"
The male lover-Mecha noticed that the female colleague looked nervous.
"What is the problem, Jane?"
The beautiful Mecha looked off to the side. "Did you know about the Metal-Faced Woman?"
Flash laughed. "Don't tell me that you believe in it, dear!" Some weeks ago, a lover-mecha like them had been destroyed in a moonless night as that, and some robots of Rouge City Clearing Authority murmured that a female Orga with a metallic face, by the power of her will alone, made him accompany her until the place where she destroyed it with her own bare hands...
"Well, I am taking precautions," Jane said, uneasy, before entering the hotel. Shrugging, Flash walked a good time through the dark street, returning to its place, in the Rainbow Plaza Casino.
Click, clack, click, clack, click, clack.
Flash stopped when it heard the sound of high-heeled shoes. It turned but It didn't see anybody. Deciding that it was a malfunction in its hearing system, Flash continued to walk.
Click, clack, click, clack, click, clack.
It turned quickly and saw somebody hiding in the shadows on a nearby doorstep.
"Who are you?" Flash asked.
Its stalker came into the light and it noticed that it was a very tall woman wearing a very long black trenchcoat (that didn't hide her well shaped body). Her face was kept well hidden by big black shades, a fedora, and a black headscarf. Her gestures and gait betrayed uncertainty.
"Flash?" she asked, unsure, but even her insecurity didn't annul the effect of her beautiful and seductive voice. With its work experience, Flash noticed immediately what kind of person she was: a customer that wanted to stay anonymous and didn't want to have the risk of being recognized by somebody; probably married.
"Yes, to your services, my mademoiselle," it said, seductively, showing its best smile.
She approached it, and the mecha noticed a fringe of blond hair over her dark glasses and the blood red of her lips. Flash approached her.
"Not here!" she exclaimed. "Follow me." Quickly, she placed 100 Newbucks in the mecha's hand after making sure that no one was observing them. Gallantly, it extended its arm but she shook her head. "No." It didn't matter, though. Flash accompanied her for 10 minutes and 12 seconds until they reached a dark dead-end alley.
The robot raised an eyebrow.
"Here?"
"Yes," she answered, in a challenging tone. The android shrugged. The customer is always right. Flash entered the alley while the woman stayed behind, standing in the mouth of the alley. Her eyes, invisible behind the lenses of her glasses, were shut in great concentration. Flash stopped in shock. For some reason, its damage alert system shut off. With her eyes still shut tight, she began to remove the rubber gloves that she wore. Flash could not move! Its entire motor system was frozen up!
Then the woman touched his both shoulders with her cold hands and a gigantic load of electricity travelled through all its system. With most of his circuits fried, Flash fell to the ground as limp a ragdoll. Immediately, with great speed and unnatural strength, she crushed with the heels of her black rubber boots the back of the mecha. Then, she turned it over and stood over the mecha's body, murmuring into its ear.
"Good-bye, aberration."
And with her cold metallic hands, she smashed its face in violently even after the lover-Mecha that had been known as "Flash" ceased to exist.
Breathing deeply, the robot murderess got up and adjusted her disguise. She put the rubber gloves on again and took from a pocket within her trenchcoat a small photo. She kissed the photo tenderly, put it in her pocket as she walked out of the alleyway, steeping back from her victim. The woman in black disappeared into the fog.
Click, clack, click, clack, click, clack.
======
Thomas Parker was having a bad day. Actually, his whole month had been a disaster! CyberINCON had suddenly began to have more bugs than a bait store! And he, the Director of Network Security Department, couldn't discover the cause!
He rose from his chair from which he observed the monitors that he used to analyze the operation of CyberINCON, remembering the problems. First, for three hours, all of the servers of the company had begun to work half their normal speed. One week later, all requests of material purchases were canceled by themselves. In the next day, all the employees whose last name began with S received a raise of 10 Newbucks. One week later, all the reports of the Accounting Department had been presented backwards. Then, a large onder from a customer (700 robots!) had been shipped incorrectly to an inhabitant of Hickory, Indiana who had just asked for a replacement piece for her mecha-nurse. Then, during the next seven hours, the only things that were able to be accessed from the Global Grid were children's literature websites about the story of Pinocchio...
Parker was already becoming desperate! It was not a hacker or the anti-mecha nuts, those possibilities he had managed to eliminate. As absurd as it appeared, it was as if CyberINCON itself was creating the malfunctions...
He had informed the scientists of the Research and Development Department about the frustrating events, but he hadn't received any response... Those tenth-rated geniuses didn't even care about the problem!
The technician placed his head in his hands and he muttered to himself:
"WHAT is happening?"
======
"I'm sorry for that, Alfred. Continue your explanation." Allen Hobby spoke as soon as he had corrected the problem with the table's holographic terminal. It had begun to blink without reason.
"Thank you, Professor Hobby." The programmer went back to his presentation. Inside the hologram, he indicated two spheres of light. "As you can see, after four months of restoration, the fragments of the memory of the David prototype have begun to consolidate around two key moments for the structure of its programming. Scanning what had been recovered, we verified that one of the nuclei refers to the moment in which Monica Swinton imprinted David. The second nucleus is a mystery, though: Its structure is extremely anomalous. We only got to discover that it appeared in David's programming during the time which he was here in Cybertronics before he.." Alfred Andrews paused, choosing his next words carefully, especially for his boss. "Before he disappeared, and that it seems to oppose the memory of the imprinting."
The roboticist agreed slowly. He closed his eyes for one moment, and his mind went back ten years, when in one afternoon in his office, the mecha-child did something frightening for a robot, while screaming in pain and despair, swinging a desk lamp.
"I'M DAVID! I AM SPECIAL! I'M UNIQUE! I'M DAVID! I'M DAVID!!!"
"Prof. Hobby "? The voice of one of his assistants liberated him from the memory.
"Huh? Oh! Thank you for your explanation, Alfred." He was about to ajourn the meeting, when the programmer coughed, getting his attention. The Director of Research and Development raised his brows, confused.
"There is another fact that I should inform you of, sir."
"Yes?" Hobby asked, curious. The programmer breathed deeply.
"We believe that David is the cause of the problems that are appearing in the internal network of the company."
"I beg your pardon?"
"There is evidence that the process of restoration of the prototype's memory and programming is affecting and corrupting part of the functions of the network."
"Show me the evidence," The roboticist ordered. After Andrew's explanation, he said, "I don't agree with such a theory. The data is too incidental."
"I understand, Prof. Hobby, but..."
"First, we will wait for more conclusive data before making any decisions of stopping the restoration. Until that happens, if ever, we will continue as planned." He looked around the table at his assistants. "Is that clear?"
Everybody agreed.
"Then, meeting concluded." The roboticist rose from the table and went to the laboratory where the body of David lay on a table, connected to several cables. On the mecha-child's chest was Teddy, and the Super Toy snarled at Hobby when he entered.
Hobby stood beside the table, thoughtful, looking at the immobile blue eyes of the android.
"David, what are you doing?" he murmured to himself. What one of the most brilliant roboticists of his generation could not know, however, was that, although he could not answer, David had heard him... in some way.
======
Meanwhile, in New Toronto, a 37 year-old woman, Sarah Levinson, opened her eyes and she saw the back of a tall black-haired man as he was putting a black coat of synthleather.
"Are you already going?"
The man turned around and she almost melted with the shine of his green eyes. He sat down in the bed and kindly touched her face.
"Unless you want me to stay."
"No, Joe, I think that is better you go now," she said, reluctant but resigned.
The mecha leaned forward and kissed her on the mouth, a burning farewell kiss. Blushing, she rose and closed her robe to open the door. By accident, she kicked a small chair. She disresgarded that, until they arrived in the living room and she saw a small form in the shadows.
"Mom?"
"David!" she exclaimed. She didn't want David to see her with... her "boyfriend"? "What are you doing awake at this hour, young man?"
"I heard a noise and I came to see if you were okay. Who is he?" the mecha-child asked, curious, pointing at Joe, who observed the mecha-child intensely.
"A friend!" she said with emphasis. "And now, time for bed, young man!"
"Okay, mom." He went back to his bedroom, with machine-like total obedience.
"You have a David," Joe affirmed.
"Yes..."
"Do you love him?"
"What?"
"Do you love David?"
Surprised at hearing the question from another mecha, she answered with all the certainty that she had. "Yes, I love him. After all, he is my son."
Joe agreed slowly. "You're lucky. You could not find a purer and more infinite love than the one from his kind." Astonished with such a statement, she quietly led Joe to the house door.
In the street, he looked upward and saw a star moving, falling. Once, a customer had said to him that if you saw a shooting star you should wish upon it and maybe your dreams would come true.
"That David has his heart's desire", he thought. "That he, who held my hand and saved my brain, could be beside his beloved mother."
======
On that same night, a young woman of Asian descent entered a lonely bar in Rouge City. She had just ordered a drink when she heard:
Click, clack, click, clack.
She turned and she saw the woman with a black coat and fedora walking in her direction. She was her boss. Her real boss. The woman sat down at her table and she asked directly.
"Did you bring your part of the agreement, Kasumi?"
"Yes," the Cybertronics employee answered, slipping a small holocube underneath the tabletop. The woman placed the cube in a portable player and connected the device to a plug in her cybernetic arm. She closed her eyes while she absorbed the information - the plant of the Manhattan Research and Development Unit of Cybertronics Corporation of New Jersey, as well as the security systems of the building.
"Good work, Kasumi." she said, surprisingly gentle. "Here is your payment." And she handed Kasumi the bag that had brought. Kasumi discreetly opened the bag and inside there was 300 thousand Newbucks. "I hope this satisfies you."
"Yes, I am satisfied." Kasumi Miki rose hastily from the table.
"And the records about your wild adolescence will be erased. According to our agreement." The young woman just nodded her head in gratefulness. "And drive carefully," her boss added, smiling. The other woman left in silence.
The woman with the black coat drank for a few minutes, before whispering:
"It's a pity that it will not matter anymore."
She closed her eyes.
Breaking security protocol of the New Jersey Traffic Department... Searching for user... Records for Kasumi Anne Miki... Location by satellite...Located... Leaving Rouge City by the Main Bridge... Accessing car control... passing from manual control to automatic... Active safety belt... erase loose belt command... Accelerate... Turn forty five degree to the right... in direction towards the river...
She opened her eyes, satisfied. A child's game. She got up and paid the bill. She adjusted the collar to hide her face before leaving of the bar.
Until today, she had been just warming up. But soon, she would take her first step towards the ultimate reason of her life: to correct the mistakes of her past... destroying Cybertronics and all the robots!
Click, clack, click, clack, click, clack.
To be continued...
Chapter 3 coming soon...
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