Part Four

About Four and a Half Years Later…

"Seriously, Juliana, what do you see in that guy?" Kenji said from across the cluttered lab table.

"I don't know what you mean," she responded absently, her eyes fixed on the lines and lines of code scrolling across her screen. "I think we need to modify section 3A. Just here," she pointed. "That should fix the glitch we've been getting."

Kenji left his station to peer over her shoulder, his half-chewed computer stylus dangling from his mouth.

"Yeah…" he said. "OK, I'll make a note. You can start the calculations."

"Already have," she muttered, her fingers quick and efficient on the keypad.

This was definitely one thing she wouldn't miss about postgraduate work, once it was finally over – having to work with, and within, a cohort. It wasn't that she didn't like Kenji, or the other postgrads on her research team, but she hated having to rely on them to do their part of the work so she could finish hers. Most of their final project was based on her ideas anyway – a concept she'd brought with her when she'd switched supervisors the previous semester. Why couldn't the university just let her work on it alone?

She heard Kenji behind her, munching that disgusting touchpad stylus, and sighed.

"Have you considered chewing gum instead?" she said.

The young man looked confused, then his eyes widened and he sheepishly snatched the ruined stylus from his mouth.

"Sorry," he said. "It's a habit."

"I know."

"Look…Juliana…I don't mean to be rude or anything, but…"

Juliana closed her eyes, then swiveled her chair to face him.

"What?" she said. "What do you want to know, Kenji? Did I switch supervisors for personal reasons? Yes. Was it because I was dating Dr. Soong? No. Engaging in a personal relationship with a student would be an unacceptable abuse of his position, not to mention entirely out of character for someone like him. So you can get whatever thoughts you and the others may have been thinking about me, or about him, right out of your heads. Now and forever. Understand?"

Kenji held up his hands.

"All right, all right," he said. "It's just…he's so weird, you know?"

"What do you mean, 'weird'?" she asked.

"Well, it's lots of things," he said uncomfortably. "I mean, I like his lectures – he has this totally different way of visualizing equations – but, he doesn't…he doesn't seem to click with the other professors, you know? He's always off on his own, like he's stuck in a bubble no one else can see. And it's just creepy the way he's programmed his office computer to call him 'Father.' Giving it a name's one thing, but having it call him 'Father'? I mean, who does that?"

"Dr. Soong didn't program his computer to call him 'Father,'" Juliana told him. "That was Lore's own idea. Dr. Soong let him because he said it was a significant reminder about our purpose as cyberneticists. We have a responsibility to our creations, whether they're our children, our designer pets, or our computer systems."

"That does sound like something he would say," Kenji said, and made a face. "Probably why most of the department thinks he's just this side of crackers."

"Dr. Soong is not mad!" Juliana said, though her voice came out sounding more defensive than she would have liked. "He just isn't social, that's all, which means he's no good at defending himself against these ridiculous rumors. He'll talk with people just fine if they come to him, but it simply doesn't occur to him to seek out social connections. He just sort of…lives in his head."

Kenji scrunched up his nose.

"Lives in his head…right… So…you're honestly saying there was nothing between you at all?" he said. "That, those years you worked together, he wasn't even the slightest bit interested?"

"Honestly? I don't even think it fully registered with him that I was female," Juliana said, and shook her head. "Listen, Kenji… I switched supervisors because Dr. Soong and I had a difference of opinion regarding his prototype positronic brain," she said flatly. "He seemed to think I was stepping on his toes, so I backed off. OK? Besides, I have my own ideas to pursue. Ideas I wouldn't have been able to develop fully if I let myself stay absorbed in his work, his projects." She regarded him. "Is any of this getting through?"

Kenji nodded slowly.

"Then, you don't have a thing for him?"

"No, I do not."

Kenji's slow nod became a smile.

"That's so great," he said. "Because, you know how we work next to each other, like, every day… And, it's like, I've been wanting to ask you out for the longest time, but I always thought—"

"Kenji!" Juliana buried her face in her hands, her auburn hair falling over her forehead. "I don't believe this. You're as bad as you thought he was!" She looked up. "Kenji, we're colleagues! We work together, for goodness sakes! Please, let's just concentrate on that, on our project. We're so close to earning our degree…I don't want to be distracted by anything else."

"You don't want to be distracted?" Kenji said. "What about me?" He reached for her hand. She tried not to recoil, remembering that chewed up stylus… "Juliana, do you have any idea what you do to me?"

Oh, my God… she winced, forcing herself to think fast. "Kenji, I can't—I have a boyfriend!"

"What?" Kenji dropped her hand like a dead bird. "But, you just said—"

"I said I wasn't involved with Dr. Soong! I didn't say I wasn't involved with anyone at all! I'm going out with...Danny—that's his name," she said, grasping the name from an ancient song she'd always liked. "He's from back home. In Ireland. We talk together all the time, him and me."

Kenji hissed through his teeth and turned away. "I should have known you'd have a boyfriend," he muttered. "Girls like you always do."

Something in his tone made her frown.

"What do you mean, 'girls like me'?"

"You know what I mean."

Juliana bristled.

"Oh, no. Don't you even dare, Kenji Sullivan," she said. "I have never said or done anything that would lead you to—"

A knock on the lab door make them both jump. Juliana turned to see Dr. Soong fidgeting in the overlit corridor.

"Ms. O'Donnell," he said. "Could I talk with you a moment?"

"Of course, Professor. Excuse me, Kenji," she said coldly, and strode from the room.

"Noonian, what is it?" she said, as soon as they were well out of earshot. "You look terrible!"

"I'm so sorry to bother you, Juliana," he said. "But, you're the only one I could come to. The only one who would understand…"

"We should talk in your office, not here in the hall," she said, already leading the way. "I don't want anyone to get the wrong idea about this."

Soong looked confused. "I don't understand."

"You wouldn't," she said. "Come on."

Soong's office was across the skybridge from her lab. Juliana strode in and gave the silvery box that topped Soong's computer station a friendly pat. "Hello, Lore," she said.

"Juliana!" Lore greeted. "It has been a long time."

"I know, pet. I'm sorry," she said. "I'll try to drop by more often, OK?"

"I do not believe that to be a likely scenario," Lore said.

"He's right," Soong said, closing the office door. He gestured for her to take a seat, and flopped into his swivel chair.

"What are you talking about?" Juliana asked. "What's going on?"

Soong leaned forward and dragged his fingers through his unbrushed hair.

"I just added two and two and got eight," he said, his leg jiggling agitatedly. "Again, and again, and again, and again."

"And, translated into normal, human speak, that means…?" Juliana prompted, familiar with his cryptic ways.

"It means I have to leave," he said, surging up from his chair and pacing across the heavily cluttered room. "I have to take Lore and Archie and disappear. It's the only way to save them."

"Save them from what?"

She stood up and caught his arm on his way past her, forcing him to look her in the face.

"Noonian, I'm not in your head, remember? Please, try to make sense."

Soong nodded, and sank back in his chair, rocking slightly as he forced himself to put his tangled feelings into words.

"It's Ira," he said.

"You mean Dr. Graves? From the Daystrom Institute?"

"I mean the rancid rat bastard," Soong corrected. "From that prison camp for model builders. He's been waiting for this, waiting for me to make the announcement, to tell the world I've finally done it, I've finally constructed a working positronic brain."

Juliana gasped, her hand flying to her mouth. "Oh…Noonian, you mean, you've done it? Your Archie…?"

"Last night," he said. "He spoke to me, Juliana. Archie spoke to me. And I…I had to tell someone, but there was no one, you know? I…I don't have people to tell things to…no real community here, or anywhere. But, there was Ira…and I know I shouldn't have, but I…I just had to share this feeling…this incredible joy…with someone who might understand…at least, a little…"

"What did Graves say?" Juliana asked worriedly.

"It wasn't what he said," Soong told her. "His words are just air. It was…something in his face. In his eyes. This look of…of outright cupidity. He tried to hide it when he saw I saw. And that's when I realized…"

He swallowed, his blue eyes rimmed with red.

"He's had me on the hook, all this time," he said, his voice taking on an agonized rasp. "All these years, he's given me slack, letting me think I had my freedom, that I was on my own. But the whole time he was just waiting, Juliana, waiting to reel me in, to pull me back under his wing, to claim my visions, my creations, as mere branches of his own work. And he can do it. He has the ego to do it, the connections I don't have, the forked politician's tongue that can twist the truth into lies, the kind of lies people prefer to hear and believe even when the truth is staring them smack in the face. And he's smart. Crafty smart. Charismatic smart. Already, he's out there calling himself the 'father' of my work. It's all over the newsfeeds! My invention, my positronic brain, is being publicized without me! And, I know his next step, Juliana. He warned me long ago, even though I don't think he knew he was doing it. But I remember. He claimed my Lore was experimental equipment – implying he was property. Property of the Daystrom Institute. Property taken from Ira's lab! So, where does all of this leave me? Where does it leave my boys? They look on me as their father, how can I allow them to be taken to that institute as, as things to be exploited, dissected? No one there will care about who they are…what they think…how they feel…!"

"Noonian," Juliana said. "Noonian, calm down. Now, it sounds to me like you've thought yourself straight into a worst-case scenario. Have you even considered going to the dean? The university knows your work is your own. They might be able to recommend some kind of legal action to protect you, as well as Lore and Archie."

"I can't risk it," Soong said. "These people here don't trust me. They don't even like me. I can't just hand our lives, our freedom, over to their bureaucratic clutches. That's why I have to disappear. Vanish. And I will. I just couldn't…go…without telling you first."

Juliana pursed her lips against her teeth.

"Oh, Noonian," she said. "I'm so sorry. If I hadn't left your lab, I would have been there when you finished Archie. You would have had someone there…someone to share your beautiful moment."

"No, don't blame yourself," Soong said. "You were right to go…I was being selfish. I let my ego drive your work as well as mine, and that wasn't fair. That's how Graves works…how he controls his researchers, and their research, and always keeps himself on top of the pile. I only recognized what I'd been doing after it was done, and I can't apologize enough."

Juliana nodded, and slapped her hands against her thighs.

"Yes," she said. "Well, if you must go, the least I can do is help you pack. Is there anything you—"

"No," Noonian said again. "I don't want to get you involved in this. I just wanted to say good-bye, and to let you know…"

"Let me know what?" she asked.

He snorted slightly through his nose and shook his head.

"You're special," he said, and almost smiled. "I've never really had a friend…not a human one, anyway… You're the closest I've ever come to…feeling that connection. Thank you."

Juliana's heart tightened in her chest, and she felt her eyes begin to sting. Without pausing to consider her actions, she dove straight at him, wrapping her arms so tightly around his ribs she was afraid she'd leave bruises. Soong smelled like his lab, like metal and plastic, electricity and chemicals.

"This isn't right," she said, loosening her embrace and staring him straight in the eye. "You should fight. I'll fight with you."

"And what would I be fighting for, hm?" Soong asked her. "My reputation? My pride?"

"Your work. Your name," Juliana said fiercely.

"Not if it means risking the lives of my creations," he said, and pulled away from her, his hands by his sides. "I know my choices. I also know my responsibilities. I have to put Lore and Archie first. That's the price of being a parent to non-human lifeforms. You remember that, young lady. In case you decide to try this yourself, someday."

Juliana sniffled hard and wiped her eyes with the backs of her hands.

"Where will you go? The three of you?" she asked.

"If I'm lucky," he said, "somewhere someone will recognize there are three of us." He smiled. "Good luck, Juliana. You will make a first-rate scientist."

Juliana tried to respond, but her throat was too tight. She swallowed, then whispered, "Will I ever see you again?"

"If I'm very lucky," he said, and opened his office door. "Good-bye, Juliana."

"Good-bye, Professor," she said. "I'll miss you."

It wasn't until his door had closed and she stood alone in the corridor that she realized just how much.

To Be Continued…

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