Part II

For covering the costs of all labor, materials, and software licenses—which totaled close to the procurement cost for a new all-weather military attack helicopter—Locus-Solus had complete ownership of Uni, the synthetic life form, and all design data and results of research. The very new and relatively small Franco-Belgian company acted as the authorizing agent of the international consortium of interested conglomerates, who actually wrote the cheques.

After a four-month crash course of development, Uni was activated and ready for a corporate presentation. The tall synthetic—she stood a comfortable 183.5 centimeters barefoot—was put in what Matsumoto Yoko dubbed "an Alice dress" from its cutesy, anachronistic resemblance to the outfit worn in various film adaptations of the novel Through the Looking Glass, and took up an executive class seat in the same row as the members of Lab Three on their European flight.

Uni, who had spent just over a week "awake" after being activated by a Locus-Solus company rep, sat in her frilly, high-collared blue-and-white dress with a smile permanently affixed to her pretty face, her mismatched eyes twinkling in the cabin lights.

Mikhail Vasilyev, who had the window seat next to Uni, noticed this and produced a small penlight, stood up in his seat, and with an order of "Hold still, dear," began flashing it directly into Uni's left, then right, eye.

"The colors have settled. The pigment is definitely more visible in the right eye than the left."

"So what does that mean?" Dr. Zheng asked from across the aisle. "Heterochromia?"

"Does it really matter?" Matsumoto asked sharply from her eat next to Zheng, looking up briefly from her old-fashion newspaper.

"Well, she's a woman, not a Siberian Husky, so I think it matters a little."

"Pride of creatorship. Let him have it," Zheng suggested to Matsumoto, who scoffed before looking back at her newspaper.

"We're days from another world war and you care about some pigment molecules not settling properly. God, have you read the papers?" she mumbled angrily. "All those maniacs sitting in Geneva seem perfectly content keep rattling their sabers."

"Except these sabers are nuclear missiles," Vasilyev muttered as he released Uni's face. The young woman blinked several times but said nothing, still smiling. "I'd feel better if China and the Americans could see eye-to-eye on something, but if they could, this would have been resolved a year ago."

"How's your nephew? The one in the navy?"

"Worried. Since the New Union Treaty, the whole of Eurasia is actually much more politically stable and strategically secure, but that's not going to stop a war from happening." He sat back down in his seat. "I think he's on one of those ballistic missile submarines, a Delfin-class I think. I bet the poor lad has nightmares that he's going to have to push a switch to send a nuclear missile to New York or Sacramento or somewhere," he explained somberly.

"The age we live in," Matsumoto said with disgust. "Uni's the lucky one—she'll never know just how f-ed up this world we live in is."

"Don't be so sure. She's smarter than she looks," Zheng countered.

Through all of this, Uni remained silent, but followed the conversation closely with short, sporadic movements of her eyes. The aircraft landed on the tarmac at Brussels Airport and all four quickly found a black limousine waiting for them outside the terminal. It promptly took them to Locus-Solus' storehouse north of Antwerp's docklands, adjacent to a large wind farm. A delegation of executives, including one with Locus-Solus stitched onto the breast pocket of his blazer, were waiting for them. Between them, they represented American, German, Japanese and Chinese cybernetics and robotics firms. The Locus-Solus representative quickly introduced all three by name.

Matsumoto, Zheng and Vasilyev bowed, as did Uni who followed behind them. After looking up to see the executives return their bows, Zheng glanced at his colleagues then back at the executives. "So I will begin: let me introduce you to the fruit of your investment, sirs. We call this young lady 'Uni'," he explained, gesturing at her.

Uni stood very still, a pleasant but still neutral expression on her face, as the body of executives stared at her curiously.

"Uni is a completely synthetic organism, one of the first of her kind. Bio-organic gynoid combining the highest advances in medicine, biochemistry, cloning and cybernetics—the dominant fields of your corporations, I think."

A rather elderly man with a cane approached the much-taller Uni before reaching out and taking her hand, which he squeezed. "She feels very lifelike."

Matsumoto cleared her throat. "Well sir, she is alive, in a manner of speaking. Uni's biological processes have more in common with full-body cyborgs than other gynoids. She respires, she can eat food and break it down for its nutritional value, and she can even repair her own body. Of course, Uni's much tougher than any normal human."

"How tough?"

The three of them turned to see a stout woman with thick glasses looking at them. Uni didn't, her hand still clenched by the old man leaning on a cane.

"How tough is she?" the executive repeated.

Vasilyev spoke up. "Uni could, without a doubt, survive trauma that would kill a human being, and the cybernetic redundancy of her synthetic body means, short of destroying her completely, one really couldn't do anything that would incapacitate her in a manner that couldn't ultimately be repaired…using the design data that we've supplied to Locus-Solus along with her."

"Could you be more specific, Doctor?" she insisted. Behind the body of executives, a Locus-Solus employee was pushing up a cart carrying a number of different-sized black boxes, followed by another one pushing a larger cart filled with neatly packed athletic equipment.

"I…don't completely understand."

She sighed. "Could you shoot her in the head with a small-caliber firearm and would she survive?" she spelled out sharply.

Vasilyev visibly jumped in his shoes while Matsumoto shook her head discreetly behind him. "Yes…yes! She's immune to limited exposure to pistol-caliber fire, the kind that would kill a person. Though the coming generation of full-body military cyborgs will probably match her durability."

"You say 'her'," another executive said, standing near the cart. "Rather than 'it'."

Vasilyev looked a little confused and offended, so Zheng answered for him. "Actually, by the relevant laws of the European Union, she arguably is a woman, though a synthetic one. You're welcome to look more closely at her if you'd care to," he said, glancing at Uni. The old executive had strolled off, leaving Uni to calmly smooth the creases of her bright-looking dress.

"I don't think that'll be necessary."

"And, of course, Locus-Solus holds all rights and patents associated with her, including manufacturing rights for any future models. Though that might be a little premature: let's see what she can do first."

Uni took off her shoes and stripped down to the athletic shorts and bra she wore underneath her dress and, over the next hour after Locus-Solus hastily set up the needed equipment, performed a number of athletic feats for the delegation: a 300-meter sprint, completed in just under 32 seconds, an Olympic-competitive time; a long jump, reaching 8.2 meters on her first attempt; some basic gymnastics to demonstrate her agility and grace. The executives followed her closely, using the radar guns and other instruments distributed by Locus-Solus, while the members of Lab Three studied her performance with their own eyes.

"As you can see, a synthetic like her can complete acts of athleticism, with no real training, an obtain results comparable to skilled Olympians," the Locus-Solus rep explained, dutifully checking the stopwatch he held in his hands. "Equally as impressive, she can repeat these feats over and over, with excellent consistency and without tiring quickly."

Uni sprinted around the small 300-meter track set up by a number of small flags set along the warehouse walls, as the rep timed her. "Again, not even thirty-two seconds."

The corporate executives clapped politely at the results. One stepped forward, in a dull-grey suit with a patterned tie. "Excuse me, but may we speak to her?"

The Locus-Solus rep looked surprised himself this time.

"She can talk, right?"

"Of course she can talk," the rep replied incredulously, stealing a glance at Lab Three, who didn't respond. "But from what I understand, her level of intelligence won't be much more impressive than that of a high-end commercial android. She's only a week old, after all," he said, forcing a laugh.

He looked at them directly. "Could you bring her over here?"

"There's no real trick it," Matsumoto interrupted, before cupping her mouth. "Uni! Kochi kochi!" she shouted, much the way someone would speak to a cat. Unlike a cat, Uni obediently turned off the track and jogged right up to her before stopping, arms flat against her sides.

"Does she only speak Japanese?" someone asked the Locus-Solus rep, who shook his head.

"No, no…on the contrary, she's mastered multiple languages," he explained. "Madame, could you...switch her to French?"

"If you speak to her in French, she'll answer in it," Matsumoto replied indignantly. "Same for any language she knows, it's in her most basic programming."

The rep coughed in his hand. "Of course. Mademoiselle," he said, addressing Uni now. "Venez ici s'il vous plait!" he said, very deliberately. More eye-rolling from Matsumoto as Uni politely walked up and attempted to curtsy, only to realize she was missing her earlier dress: a particularly lifelike, human mistake.

"Comment vous appelez-vous?" the rep asked. The lab members could hear someone in the back of the crowd translating his question into English.

"Je m'appelle Uni, monsieur," Uni replied, practically purring the response but remaining polite. Vasilyev held back a snort.

The Locus-Solus continued with his line of questions in French, steadily rising in difficulty, though remaining in general topics—the time of day, advanced arithmetic, minute visual details about the consortium representatives behind him. Uni could accurately guess their ages to within a two-year period, with no prior knowledge, using her synthetic eyes and internalized medical database, and was frequently much closer. A representative took a baseball from the cart and tossed it at Uni when he thought she wasn't looking, only to have her catch it behind her head and hold it politely, to some mumbles of approval from her audience.

"Really, we should shoot it in the head and see how well it functions," the earlier executive offered, crossing her arms.

This time Zheng objected. "Excuse me! I don't want to be rude, ma'am, but I would repeat this is a highly advanced bio-cybernetic product! Do you test all your proof-of-concept prototypes by shooting them in the head?"

"Now, now," the Locus-Solus rep interrupted. "I'm sure that won't be necessary. In fact, this presentation has been very informative I think, and I think the good members of Lab Three are entitled to a round of applause."

By the time the three of them arrived at their hotel room in Antwerp, some of the uncomfortable tension had passed. Vasilyev was immediately planted to the television, anxiously watching the unfolding political crisis in Geneva.

"I bet you thought it was going to be the South China Sea that kicked off this crisis, didn't you?" Matsumoto asked the back of his head.

"Leave him alone, he's got family in the military, unlike you or I," Zheng chided her, while Vasilyev just waved a hand in dismissal. "I'm sure it'll be fine, Misha. How many staring contests like this have we seen in our time?"

Zheng turned away. "Right now, I'm a bit worried about leaving Uni with that Locus-Solus rep."

"Well, it's their product, they paid for her," Matsumoto pointed out cynically. "The least they can do is take her for a 'test ride' for a day."

Zheng's shoulders twitched abruptly. "Thank you for reminding me."

"I'm sure they're all very professional," Vasilyev told him quietly, not turning from the news coverage.

"In my experience, the rich have very strange perversions compared to the rest of us," he despaired before plopping down in his chair.

It was late that evening, after all three had returned from dining out that the call came in.

"Am I on speaker phone?" the Locus-Solus rep asked as the three gathered around their small end table in their shared suite.

"You are, go ahead," Vasilyev assured him.

"Right. First, I just wanted you three to know that I think you really wowed the consortium representatives this morning. I know you brilliant science types aren't exactly at your forte when it comes to business presentations, but you did very well! We all knew a state-of-the-art bio-gynoid was going to be a hard sell, but someone had to come first, and it was going to be Locus-Solus!"

"Wowed?" Zheng asked Vasilyev, who just shrugged.

"So what's the bad news?" Matsumoto asked.

"It's not really bad news!" he insisted. "In fact, we're…we're going to go ahead and order a second unit, an exact duplicate. Produced as-soon-as-possible!"

Vasilyev looked at his companions, giving a hopeful shrug. "An exact duplicate? You know, it won't be much cheaper, only minus the cost of the manufacturing equipment…"

"No, we know, and we're confident it's well worth it! Obviously, a piece of hardware like Uni isn't an easily-marketable commercial product when she costs as much as a Swiss chateau, but…well, you saw her on the track, she's a perfect technology demonstrator and marketing unit!"

"He's right," Zheng noted.

"So, we think we'd like to take two of them 'on the road', so to speak—trade shows, conventions, and so forth."

"So basically they'd just be racing queens without the car," Matsumoto pointed out stiffly. Zheng and Vasilyev both gave a slightly confused look. "Not that there's anything wrong with that!" she quickly added.

"Here's the real point: can you do it? Give Uni a twin in the next month?"

Vasilyev preemptively pressed the hold button on the telephone set before turning to his colleagues. "Fine, I'll say it: we all know the answer to this question." He looked both of them in the eyes. "Don't we?"

Matsumoto gave an exasperated sigh while Zheng touched the button again and cleared his throat.

"Yes, I'm sure we can."