Chapter 9

Mara sat in her stateroom, filing her notes, data, and logs into alphabetical order and piling them into her newly designated manila folder—Khan, it read. In very permanent black scribbles.

She sighed, her legs crossed under her on the plush red comforter. The notes and data were all well and good, but… she wanted to be with him more. To watch him progress. It seemed she was only being summoned now if he took a rough beating in training, and even then her job consisted of finding absolutely nothing to report.

She huffed a sigh, tossing her file to the floor next to the nightstand, and slipped on her shoes. The worst that could happen was denied entry.

She went first to the lobby, approaching her favorite pissy receptionist.

"Would you mind calling Director Pierce for me, please. It's not urgent," she said, not looking at the woman as she spoke, for she knew she wouldn't like the disdainful look.

"One moment," the receptionist said, picking up a corded phone from the desk in front of her. "Director Pierce, you have a caller at the front desk. Take your time, sir, she says it isn't urgent."

She hung up, and waited. Mara took the opportunity to check the woman's name. Audrey. Even the name sounded hoity.

The phone rang quickly, and when Audrey picked up, she simply handed the phone over the counter.

"Yes?" she heard the Director's familiar voice.

"Director, hello. It's Dr. McGivers," she said, uncertain of what to say. She had clearance for the B-F Levels, but she couldn't just go wandering around looking for him.

"Yes, hello," the Director said, sounding distracted. "Is something wrong?"

"No, not at all," Mara replied, twisting the cord around her finger. "I was just wondering… well, you see…"

She paused, gathering her words. "I'm very impressed with the progress Khan and the others have made. And, while I'm only his Physician, I was hoping… I was hoping to be able to study him a bit more."

'Study him' felt wrong. Like he was a zoo animal. But she knew the vernacular would please Pierce. After all, Khan was Pierce's prodigy, his life's work.

"Oh, yes, of course, Dr. McGivers," Pierce said in a heightened tone that suggested he was flattered by her interest. "He is on C-Level, doing some work for me. Feel free, Doctor. Your key card should suffice."

"Thank you, Director," she said, handing the phone back to Audrey.

C-Level was much like E-Level. It was completely open, with no walls or hallways, but instead of mats, weights, and punching bags, there were desks, workshops, and an entire corner of the giant room dedicated to what looked like robotics. It was their intellectual space—the place they went to do their thinking, their creating. To do whatever it was they had been created for.

Khan sat at a workbench halfway down the far wall, and Mara could feel it in the atmosphere—he was definitely the alpha. Even with his back turned to the others, they lifted their eyes when passing him, or made simple greetings. He never answered, but it didn't seem to be required that he do so. It simply seemed necessary that the others acknowledge him when interacting with his space.

As Mara approached, she could see piles of papers—architectural designs, schematics, notes, and graphs. Khan sat fixedly over a notebook, a work lamp pulled over his head, sketching intricately detailed drawings of… something.

Beside him was the strangest contraption Mara had ever seen. At the bottom, it had four pivoting wheels attached to two axels, which were in turn connected to a long pole of a spine that stretched to Khan's waist-height. It had two robotic arms, which were sifting through some of the papers, seemingly organizing by category. It didn't have much of a face—just a single mounted camera in the center of a processor, which gave it a fish-like quality.

"What is this," Mara asked quietly, pointing to the robot. It twisted, looking up at her as if it had heard and comprehended.

Khan glanced sideways at her once, his mind obviously occupied by his work. "Frank, introduce yourself," he said, returning to his sketching.

"Hello," the robot said in a robotic voice. The voice came from a speaker mounted beneath the camera. "I am Frank, animatronic assistant."

"A robot," Mara said skeptically, surprised beyond words. "You built a robot to help you?"

"Artificial intelligence," Khan said distractedly, squinting into his drawing as he set detail into his shading. "'Robot' is an archaic and demeaning word. Although I doubt I've given it the capacity to be offended."

"No, Khan," Frank said. "Offend: to displease or otherwise irritate one's sensibilities. As I have no pleasures, irritations, or sensibilities, offense is impossible."

"Thank you, Frank, that was a very logical and frank explanation," Khan said, his eyes never leaving his work. "Pun intended," he finished with a small grin.

"I do not understand…" Frank began.

"Of course you don't," Khan said, but dropped it, focusing on a bit of erasing.

"Frank?" she asked quietly, grabbing a nearby chair and pulling it close. She was aware that several of the others were watching her.

"Mary Shelley. The Modern Prometheus," Khan explained as he brushed away eraser shavings and continued. "In the story, Dr. Frankenstein creates a creature from the parts of others. Although through cultural bastardization and flawed story-telling, the creation has widely become known as Frankenstein. Ergo, Frank."

Mara's jaw dropped, but Khan, of course, missed it. She was blown away by his familiarity with literature. She doubted Rowen deemed literary studies important enough to install in his matrix of knowledge, which meant he had already read the entire story of Frankenstein. It was a classic, sure, but it actually wasn't as captivating as everyone made it sound.

"Been doing some reading, then?" she asked, peering over and trying to get a look at what he was drawing. It was hopeless. The intricacies and details were lost on her. The best she could tell, it was some kind of gun. Or maybe a refrigerator.

"Plenty, yes," he replied in a deadpan, darkening the lines of the sketch.

"Any favorites?" she asked.

"Yes," he replied, reaching down past the desk and pulling out an antique-looking text.

The Once and Future King. T.H. White.

"You like fantasy?" Mara asked, flipping through the pages and seeing that he had dog-eared passages. She made a note to check them for her own psychological satisfaction.

"I enjoy seeing how humans disguise their differing and often flawed opinions on morality and justice through the metaphors of fiction," Khan replied, returning to his sketch.

Mara took a deep breath, trying to suppress her awe at his comprehension and level of analytical thought.

Khan sighed, leaning up and pushing the sketch away. Frank immediately took it in his bionic arms, held it up to his camera for analysis, and piled it with the other sketches.

"How… how does he do that?" Mara asked, watching Frank center the pages.

"This is the nature of artificial intelligence," Khan said, a hand rubbing his temple. "I gave him a core processor with wireless links to worldwide databases, archives, libraries. Then I gave him five-hundred gigabytes of memory, so that once he has learned something, he can catalogue it. That, I also taught him to do, in order to save space. Then, and this is the most important part, I designated ten gigs of free space—space he can fill with things he finds in archives that I have not asked him to find but that he designates may be useful or interesting in the future, based on previous searches. Thus, giving the illusion of intelligence. Hence the term, 'artificial'."

Mara couldn't help it. A breathless 'wow' escaped her. She stared at him, watching. While the explanation of Frank was a modern technological marvel, Khan seemed bored by it. Restless, even.

"I need to get out," Khan said, burying his head in his hands and ruffling his usually perfectly combed hair. Mara was unsure what he meant by it. If he meant what she thought—that he wanted out of Rowen—then there was a problem she probably needed to discuss with Pierce.

"I… what do you…" Mara began, trying to read it in his features.

"Outside, Mara," he said irritably. Mara nodded, realizing it was the first time he had said her name. It felt… strange, and yet extremely intriguing all at once.

"It's stifling in here. Low ceilings. Four walls of equal length. Fluorescent lighting spaced perfectly throughout the room, so shadows are forced and measurable. A normal human would go mad in here, what do they expect of us?" he said, standing and pacing.

"Ok, ok," she said, seeing the first signs of physical agitation in him. "Let's go, then. You're allowed."

"Allowed, allowed," he said, pacing faster and keeping his hands on his hips angrily. "Who is to allow me? If anything, it is I who should be making the rules for them. It is what they created me for, is it not?"

Something was happening as Khan became more volatile. Every one of The 72 that was present had stopped their work, and were intently listening to his rant.

"Khan," Mara said softly, holding her hands out and standing slowly, like she was facing a felon with a gun. "Khan, I think you should calm down. Let's go upstairs and get some fresh air, hm? Well, you get fresh air. I'll pollute it with smoke."

She hoped the joke would break the tension in the room, and it did. Slightly. Khan half-grinned at her, nodding and taking a deep breath. The others went back to their work after a brief moment of watching their leader.

As Khan rode silently in the elevator with her, Mara deeply considered the root of Khan's outburst. He was better, and he knew it. But he was starting to express that sentiment now, and something told her it was very, very dangerous.

The gardens were the only place Mara felt that Khan was truly relaxed. His mind was always running everywhere else, a tension filling him as he felt an urge to simply occupy his time. But when he was standing in the sun, surrounded by colors and green life… he was different. Calmer.

"I want to apologize," he said in a low tone, taking in a measured, deep breath. He angled his face toward the high sun, his eyes closed as he let the heat warm his skin. "For my outburst. It was uncalled for."

"It's quite alright," Mara said, sitting on a stone half-wall and pulling out her pack of cigarettes. "I understand how frustrating the same four walls can be when you've done nothing but stare at them for hours. Believe me—I'm a Doctor."

"No, it's not alright. I should not have done that. Not in front of you, not in front of them," he said, lowering his head from the sun and turning to her.

"Since when have you been so concerned with what you should and shouldn't do?" Mara asked, taking the first satisfying drag of her cigarette. "It didn't stop you when you tore through Jonathan Harris's tendon."

This genuinely amused Khan, and he gave a coy, toothless grin. "Well… that was warranted. This was simply childish. I was irritated from cabin-fever. It won't happen again."

Mara smiled, appreciating the human change in him.

"So," Khan began, pacing on a stone path in front of her, his hands still on his hips—an anxious remnant. "You know practically all there is to know about me. How about you? You are an American, this much I know."

"Yes," she replied, blowing out smoke but making sure to keep it away from him. His disdain for it was clear. "New Jersey. I was one of the best practitioners in the state. Or so I'm told."

"So what makes the 'best practitioner in the state' decide to drop everything—her successful career, what I can only assume was a handsome income… and fly out to London. To help a relatively unknown British Eugenics corporation monitor 73 genetic experiments?"

Mara paused, her lips stopping on her cigarette.

"Don't tell me it was the paycheck, then you're lumping yourself into the same weaknesses you attributed to men," he went on, stopping by a bird-bath and watching a pair of small Linnets bathe themselves.

"No, it wasn't," she said, continuing with her cigarette, knowing that if she didn't, it would be a tell. "Although it didn't hurt."

Khan scoffed, but it wasn't a hateful one.

"I was curious," she said, leaning back and staring up at him. He finally stopped his pacing and looked at her. "The Eugenics Wars are proving to be just that—a war. One that puts the Space Race to shame. And… well, the American programs are far from doing what Rowen has done… years from it. I wanted to be a part of it. Something…more than what I already had. And when Rowen contacted me, I couldn't turn them down. Even if it meant aiding a competing country. I just had to see it for myself. Be a part of it."

Khan stared at her for a long time, his eyes contemplating her. He seemed to be making some judgment about her, and she could only hope it was a good one.

"Fair enough," he said after some time, returning to his pacing. It left Mara wondering what conclusion he had come to. "What about your family?" he said, staring intently at a particular flower. A brilliant foxglove, just bloomed. "What does your family think of your decision to aid a country not your own?

"My parents are gone," Mara said, taking a drag of her cigarette and looking away from him. "My mother died of cancer a few years ago, and the bottle took my dad a few years after that. I have a brother, but he married my best friend and then cheated on her. Needless to say we don't speak anymore."

Khan stopped his pacing again, and this time joined her on the half wall, sitting next to her. "I'm sorry to hear that," he said softly.

"No you're not," she said in a deadpan—not meant to hurt him, but simply to make the point. "You don't know what it is to have a family. Rowen took that from you."

Khan nodded, inhaling sharply. "You're right, I don't. I make my own family."

With that, he stood again, picking the foxglove and spinning it in his fingers. "They're much more trustworthy when you can choose them," he said, pulling petals from the foxglove.

"I shall have to try it some time," Mara said, and both of them smiled.