24

The moon was rising over the horizon when Medford drove into the parking bay. He killed the current and sat there, listening to his motor whir to a stop, letting the queasy feeling inside fade before he dared to leave the cruiser. Miriam’s words had created a sick uncertainty in his gut, and it had been building all the way home. He eyed the small enclosure where the mech-bot was parked. Then he firmed up, and crawled out of his car.

He’d never been a trinket man. He’d shied away from awards and extravagant symbols of success. He’d never had a need for a butler or maid, they were just something people owned to show they had money. But this device had come with the house.

“Maintenance,” Medford said aloud. The mech-bot stepped quickly from its parking unit and approached the cruiser. It triggered the hood and slipped its talon-like fingers into the engine well. Medford walked close behind it as it worked, reading meters and virtual readouts with its hands. Carefully he began to inspect the busy robot, scanning its smooth metallic surface until he found what he was looking for.

His breath relaxed. “Automated Enterprises Inc” he read aloud with a relieved sigh. Miriam was wrong. The mech-bot was not the mysterious Klaxon. It had not been talking to the little Mecha. “Erase security logs,” he ordered again and started for the house, wondering what the little bot had been talking about. “Klaxon,” he repeated as he walked. Wasn’t a ‘klaxon’ a bell or something? Used as a …

“A warning!” he said in a sudden realization. His voice echoed in the dark garage. He did know that name. “No!” he yelled and ran to the ident-pad at the parking bay door. He read the face of the pad, the small words imprinted into the metal just beneath the saddle where he’d placed his palm every time he’d adjusted house security parameters. It was identical to the once at the gate. He’d seen it every time he logged into the house.

It read: Klaxon Security System, a subsidiary of Automated Enterprises Inc.

The queasy feeling came back instantly and turned to dread as he realized he had overlooked something in his precautions. Every time he had driven into the house the Security System had scanned the cruiser and had stored the data. Every time he had erased that data from the cruiser’s log, it had made a note of the deletion and stored it. Every time it modified the logs, it had sent the modification to every other security related device in the house. What if that list included…

“Hello, Father,” came a voice from behind him.

Medford turned quickly to regard the little robot that had disrupted his life. “Tommy,” he said in a low angry growl. “You’re not supposed to be in here.”

The Mecha did not reply. It just glanced up, into the dark stairwell that led into the house, as if something had called its name.

“What are you doing here,” Medford yelled, his dread turning into a rage that rose from the seat of his mind and consumed him. “You little metal brat! I should take you back right now!” he yelled and started towards the little Mecha. But he stopped abruptly, taken back as Tommy fixed him with a dark glare.

“Shhhh,” Tommy said, holding a finger to its lips. “The house is talking.”

Medford’s heart froze. “And what is it saying, Tommy?” he asked, stepping slowly towards the bot.

Tommy glanced away for a moment, and then fixed Medford with a knowing gaze. “Klaxon says that you are a liar.”

Medford bolted forward and grasped the Mecha around the neck. He began to shake the bot, throttling it uncontrollably. “What did you tell her?” he hissed under his breath, fearing he was making too much noise, but too consumed by rage to stop. “What did you say, you little fiber freak?” His wind was racing. He had to find a way out of this. He had worked too hard to build this life and was not about to let this damn machine destroy it.

Then suddenly, he knew what to do. He could claim it was an accident. He could say that he hadn’t been watching when he’d pulled into the bay and had seen the little Mecha too late. He would have to do a decent simulation of remorse, but he’d been getting better at feigning emotions.

Medford dragged the struggling bot into the parking bay. He’d have to secure him and turn off his motion regulators. The little thing fought his grasp, but it was not very strong. It was, after all, only a child.

“Sorry, kid,” Medford said, “I guess we’re just not compatible after all.” But he shrieked when he felt something sharp tear at the flesh of his back. He threw Tommy to the floor and turned to see a featureless face closing in on him. Its arms were reaching out to grasp him with talon-like fingers.

The pain was incredible, but mercifully short.

25

Text excerpt from statement of Julia Contreras Zimmerman:

“It’s not my fault that Tommy’s design was stolen. After what happened to my husband, that awful incident with the malfunctioning Mech-Unit, he is all I have left! Like the Swinton woman, I have come to love this… creature, as my own child. I don’t care what legal issues are between Cyberchild and Cybertronics; I am not letting them take him away. He is not ‘evidence’. He is my son.”

26

Tommy’s friend in the parking bay was gone now. He’d been replaced with a different machine, one that did not seem to know his language. Nor did the house speak to him anymore. It would not tell him about all the little things that went on, like it had told him of the lies that Father had been telling, the security-logs that he had erased, the falsified entries in his itinerary manager, and the phones calls he’d made from the cruiser in the parking bay.

Lies were bad. Tommy knew that. It was a basic thing, hard-coded into his brain. It was his fundamental sense of right and wrong, just as it had been for the Klaxon and his old friend in the garage. They shared this binary morality like brothers.

Tommy missed his friends, in his own manner. But he still had Mother, and she promised that she would never let anyone take him away. She would fight in the courts and in the halls of public opinion to keep her little Mecha boy. It was a matter of compatibility.

Like the kind he’d shared with Klaxon and his friend in the garage. They’d had a great influence on Tommy, but the influence that the little bot had, in turn, had on them was something that only one person was aware of.

27

Keith rushed down the long corridor. He was panting by the time he reached the end. He flung his bag from his shoulder, to the floor, and pressed his palm against the ident-pad at the door. It blazed blue as it searched for his ticket, and then let him pass.

“Mr. Galbraith!” came a voice behind him.

Keith jumped at the voice and turned to see a pretty face, a Mecha face. The robot stewardess was gesturing to the floor. “You forgot your bag,” it said cheerfully.

Keith sighed in relief. For a moment he had expected to see a trooper. “Thanks,” he said and retrieved his carry-on. He rushed to his seat and strapped in. For once Jackie was right. He was getting jumpy and he really did need this vacation. He had no intention of being around when the crap hit the fan and he was sure that Automated Enterprises didn’t want him around either.

He knew too much.

Cybertronics was bringing an action against them, and the Zimmerman widow was fighting to keep her substitute son, ignorant about what part it had played in her husband’s death.

And what part he had played.

Keith had realized, too late, his first mistake: using Automated’s standard programs on the Tommy Project. The simple rules of good and bad behavior, on which the binary Klaxon System based its discretion, had caused a still unknown reaction in Tommy’s brain.

But no one knew that; no one except he and Jacqueline, and he had no worries about her talking. Everyone else thought the Mech-bot had simply malfunctioned and taken its owners life. They didn’t know, either, about Keith’s second mistake: using the program that allowed Automated’s different systems to communicate, on Tommy. He had seen the data flow being processed by Tommy’s special processor on the day he’d visited the Zimmerman woman. But he had not recognized it for what it was. The information Tommy had received about his Orga Father’s lies and deceptions, coupled with the compatibility conflict between its experimental sentient responders and the outdated behavioral programs, had caused a conflict in the little bot. This was all intensified by its ability to talk, and conspire, with the Klaxon System and the droid.

Would anyone ever know what had really occurred between those systems; what bond had developed between them, that would drive a simple droid to kill in order to protect Tommy?

Or had it been doing Tommy’s bidding?

He opened his bag and checked the little disc he had stashed in a pocket. He toyed with it nervously as the plane rose off the landing pad and into the cloud covered Virginian skies.

He wasn’t sure yet, if he was going to mail the evidence. His conscience was at war with his self-preservation. It would surely mean the end of his career with Automated. But then again, they weren’t really the right company for him, were they?

It was really a matter of compatibility.