Plasticity Page 23

  Alan Rice felt a little embarrassed, and his cheeks were showing it. “My parents liked to display the things I made as a kid, and I haven't really spent any time cleaning up after they left. Sorry.”

  Portland looked less than trusting, but if he was saying that he had made this, it was impressive. If he had made it when he was a child? Impossible. “You're saying you made this when you were a kid?”

  “Yeah, Dad gave me a set of sculpting tools when I was...” He looked to the ceiling in thought. “Eight and a half. I spent that whole summer playing with them, but I sorta stopped when I got more interested in the robotics part.” He was shuffling his feet, as if he were being scolded.

  “This isn't fired clay, or cast resin, is it Alan?” Portland bounced the statue in her hand. Feeling unbelievably heavy for its thirteen inch height. Portland turned it over, and back again, admiring the tiny details, the perfectly sculpted face, classic marble breasts, exact replica of a Greek statue's half-missing toga, and impossibly intricately carved wires, tubes, and “scraps” of metal for arms, all appearing to be carved out of a hunk of solid rock. Not actual marble, it looked more like blue alabaster, but of course you wouldn't give a hunk of marble to a child to chip away at, no matter how wealthy you were.

  “No, it's a rock. Just a dumb old rock.” He was losing his focus to something else, when the robot girl spoke, for the first time since she had been “activated.”

  “Down...” Her voice was even more distorted than before, coming out like autotuned white noise through a drive-thru speaker. “Stairs.”

  Portland set the statue down and looked at the robot girl. She had not moved since she had followed Alan into the house, but she was slumping, slightly, and her dead eyes flickered briefly before settling back into stasis.

  “Your digital assistant, slash sex toy, is nearly worthless, like this. Can you bring her back?” Portland crossed the tile and leaned her face to the robot girl's face, searching her eyes for something, anything.

  “I didn't know saying her name was going to do this, so I don't know how I would undo it. But, we could take her downstairs, like she said, and mess with her, there.”

  “Phrasing, Alan Rice.” Plastic Hayley chided, as if this were normal banter between the two.

  “Downstairs isn't some kind of freaky rich-person dungeon, or something, is it?” Portland had an aversion to the basements of the wealthy, as they tended to be reflections in literal of the metaphorical underground activities the wealthy enjoyed.

  Thom's stomach began to swirl, and he worried about flash backs to the bunker beneath the barn. He couldn't really remember details about it, but his breathing was accelerated, and jagged, and he began to imagine himself sweating, but dabbing at his face revealed that he was still dry.

  “No way, not at all. It's the best part of the house. Not like up here where it's haunted.” Alan Rice was shuffling across the room, toward the entrance to, what appeared to be, based on furniture and decor, a living room. Alan Rice set his back against the moulding of the doorway, and reached a hand around his back, into the living room. His arm jerked erratically, like he was fumbling with something unseen, and he had seemed to succeed, based on the click and whir that came from somewhere within the living room. “Okay, it's open. Go quick.”

  The urgency in Alan's voice prompted the others to scramble into the living room. Cyrus was first through the door in a panic, but he stopped short, causing Hayley Prime to crush herself into his back. She would have apologized, but she saw why he had stopped, and she became distracted by her confusion. They were in a living room. A regular living room, with four walls, a fireplace, some furniture and a large bay window. There was nowhere else to go, and no obvious “It” to be “Open.”

  “What's open, Alan?” Plastic Hayley turned around to see that Alan was still outside of the living room, only his right shoulder peeking out from the entryway.

  “I don't know what that means, Hayley Acero.” He sounded like he was straining to lift something, but it was obvious he was just standing there, unmoving.

  “There're no doors. How do we get to the basement?”

  There was a quick succession of beeps, then a click, and the tiniest, far away sound of a scrape. Like listening to someone cut a piece of paper from behind a solid wooden door.

  “Still no doors, Alan Rice.”

  Alan Rice swung his hand around again, and Hayley Prime saw what he was fumbling at, and that Alan's hand barely reached it from his awkward perch outside the room. She walked over to the wall, which was covered with a hideous pattern of dashed-line-diamonds in pink and turquoise, with small black dots in their centers. She pressed her finger against the black dot nearest the spot, she presumed, that Alan had been swiping at with his flailing hand. She was rewarded with a gentle buzz, and the click and scrape sound.

  “Capacitive touch with haptic feedback. I could touch this thing all day.” She smiled and touched it again, giggling at the feedback. The sounds did not repeat, even through the repeated poking at the wall that Hayley was doing.

  “Whatever it is, it appears to be on a timer, which is good for us, 'cause I don't think we'd be able to make it through if pressing the button opened and closed it, too.” Portland semi-glared at Hayley Prime, but it was without anger, and barely hid that she was greatly enjoying Hayley's enjoyment of such a simple device. She struggled to suppress her smile.

  “Okay, Alan, I assume the door or whatever is open. How do we go through?” Plastic Hayley called to him.

  “I don't know about doors. Follow the wall to your right and you'll walk through the far wall and into the elevator.” Alan sounded slightly calmer, now, but he would still not enter the living room.

  Cyrus looked at the others, shrugged, and sauntered to corner where the far wall and right wall connected. He reached out a hand and it went through the wall into nothing. He waved his hand around, and then stuck his face through. “It's dark, but it's clearly an elevator. Also, um, only looks like two at a time in here.” Maybe one and a half, if I'm one of 'em, he thought.

  They heard the beeps, and Cyrus pulled his head out quickly, before the click and scrape sounds. He set his hand out, and it felt like he was touching the wall for a fraction of a second before another click and scrape happened, and he felt the wall slide away from his hand. Hayley was still poking at the wall. Cyrus could not stifle his laughter, causing the others to look at him with an odd eye. His wheezing, grumbling chest heaved, and his eyes were pinched tight, giving him the appearance of some kind of Hollywood pimp imitating Santa Claus. Hayley Prime was goddamn adorable, and it was affecting him.

  There was mumbling about who should go when, and how they would split up to fit, but Lydia had already worked out who was riding the elevator with whom, and knew that it was best that she and Alan go first. “Come on, Alan, we're going in.”

  Alan Rice shut his eyes, rolled around the corner, and dragged his hand along the wall on the way to the elevator, forcing Hayley Prime to jump out of the way or be mauled by him. Lydia followed behind him, until they disappeared through the wall. The beeps, click, and scrape were followed by an almost inaudible hum that resonated for a few seconds before fading out, then returning with a crescendo. The robot girl had tried to follow Alan, but had not moved quickly enough, and was now stuck in the living room with the others.

  Portland took Hayley Prime by the hand and led her into the elevator, next. Cyrus slumped in resignation, realizing that he would have to take the robot girl. He spoke at her, first as gentle persuasion, then as frustrated commands, but she was completely unresponsive. With Alan gone, she was firmly planted, in standby mode, waiting for commands that could not be delivered. Cyrus had never picked up a robot body as small as this one, and he was surprised to find how light it was. He easily carried it into the elevator, tucked under one arm, leaving Plastic Hayley and Thom behind.

  “I'm certain I do not want to go down there.” Thom was looking at Hayley, who was rifling through v
arious objects on a nearby bookcase.

  “No one said we had to stay together, or anything. We might as well stay up here. I don't even know what I'm going to do, now. Cynthia did this, and now she's gone, and the only other person who cares that I exist is Alex.” She started toward the foyer, hesitated, then sat down on the over-stuffed leather couch. She looked tired, and sad, and Thom had forgotten that she couldn't actually get tired, and he felt sympathy for her. He sat down beside her, but she turned away.

  “Are you actually sad about this? You found out who was hunting you, found out that it was just a bunch of idiots, and now you don't have to worry about it anymore. You're basically free.” Thom considered putting his hand on her shoulder, but then thought better of it.

  “Yeah, I suppose. Except now, I know that I am the equivalent of a failed experiment, and I'm legally property of someone else. I'm probably going to be returned to the hospital to be wiped, and, everyone that knows us likes the one who owns me better. Some freedom.”

  “Portland won't let Cyrus return you to the hospital. She may seem heartless, but she and I share similar concepts of ethical behavior, and wiping an innocent sentient being to appease a corporation's interest is not ethical. Even if it were, it's not like Portland to be helpful to outsiders.”

  “I'm an outsider.” Hayley had turned to face Thom, and he could picture tears welling up in her eyes.

  “You remember the look on her face when she turned and saw that you were not the flesh Hayley?”

  “Yeah, where it looked like I'd killed her dog or something?”

  “From that moment, you were part of her circle. Before that, you didn't exist, as far as she was concerned, but once she knew you were a version of Hayley, you had to be added to the group. She'd no sooner turn you in, than she would me, or Hayley Prime.”

  “It's all well and good for you to trust her, but I don't know her and can't feel that level of faith.” Hayley stood and began to shuffle through books from the bookcase.

  “Hayley, why are we here in this house?” Thom's face took on a stern look, which gave him a commanding presence that Hayley had not previously thought possible.

  “Something about reuniting Tabitha with her father, although I wasn't clear how that was supposed to work.” Hayley did not look up from the book she was thumbing through.

  “Exactly. We didn't know what Portland's plan was, only that she had one.”

  “Yeah, so?”

  “And, she made a deal with a witch, not a puppet. Once Tabitha became a puppet, she no longer had a responsibility to her, wouldn't you say?”

  Hayley closed the book, but did not turn around. “Maybe, I guess.”

  “But she's fulfilling her promise, because she made a deal, even if that fulfillment will mean absolutely nothing to Tabitha anymore, she's still going to do it, because she said she would.”

  Hayley sighed and put the book back on the shelf. “Fine, if you say so.” She walked across the living room, studying the pattern on the wall. “I'm going to go down there with them. I want to know what was so important that Tabitha was able to perform an action without a command. You coming?” She touched the wall and felt the buzz at her fingertip.

  Thom did not want to go into the basement, and he did not want to stay in the living room by himself. He managed to convince himself that being in the basement with other people was better than being alone, and he got up without a word and followed Hayley into the elevator. There was only one button, the exact size, shape, and color of a retro-arcade game button, inset on a large sheet of brushed metal. There was no floor count, or emergency stop, just the one command button, and when Hayley pressed it, the elevator jerked smoothly into motion, bringing to Thom's mind the image of a robotic factory arm lifting and lowering the cabin.

  The elevator door opened onto a scene of unimaginable horror. Body parts hung from the ceiling, bodies in various states of assemblage lined the walls, and in the middle stood twin Victorian nightmares. Thom fell back against the wall of the elevator, struggling to breathe, panic-sweat dripped into his eyes, stinging them dry, and the last thing he saw was the face of something peek out from behind one of the bodies as the thing began to rise to its feet.

  Thom awoke in a panic, nearly falling out of the office chair he had been placed into. He was in a small room that looked to be set up as an office, and Portland was leaning against a desk in front of him. Smiling.

  “You really have to work on that constitution of yours.” She handed him a lidless water bottle, which he took and began to drain without questioning.

  Thom had calmed down enough to begin taking stock of where he was. He slowly spun the office chair around to see that Alan and Cyrus were also in the room, Alan sitting on the floor with a small paper magazine of some sort, and Cyrus standing against the wall, arms across his chest, looking as if he were standing guard. Then he saw what he believed Cyrus would be guarding: Hayley Prime was laid out along a dark leather couch, sleeping.

  “What is this place?” Thom's head was pounding, and he needed more water.

  “An office in the basement, which is less of a basement and more of a factory of sorts.” Portland reached into a small refrigerator beneath the desk and pulled out another bottle of water, gesturing with it to Cyrus, who shook his head, before twisting the cap off and handing it to Thom. “Got enough equipment out there to put together a lucrative custom plastic operation.”

  “Ain't that right.” Cyrus was beyond pleased with this situation. He believed he had found his way into a new job. He just needed to get Alan on board. And, with the confession of Hayley Prime still burning in his ears, his head was full-up with bright futures.

  “If you think you can see it without passing out, again, I'll take you out there and show you around.” Portland saw Thom's hesitation. “It's actually pretty impressive. Old Man Rice set up some hefty gear. Rivals some of the big budget shit I've seen in actual factories.”

  Thom was slightly comforted knowing he had misunderstood what he saw, and was slowly beginning to understand that it was not the same as what he saw in that bunker way back when. Still, he was having a hard time convincing his body to do anything resembling leaving the chair. Then, a vague, distant memory swirled into his head, but he had a hard time getting it to solidify.

  “Two of them...” He saw, in his head, twins of some sort, which slowly cleared up enough for him to realize what he had seen. “There were two of the witches, standing in the middle of all the bodies, staring at me when the elevator landed. Where did the other one come from?”

  “It was here, sitting in a chair, about an inch of dust on it. Clearly somebody,” she glared at Alan, who did not look up from his reading, “has not been in here in quite some time. The factory's a cleanroom, temperature controlled and with some kind of contaminant evacuation system, but none of that extends to this office, apparently.” Portland reached down a hand to help Thom out of the chair. “Not so clean you have to wear a suit, though. But you do need to wear a ground-strap if you're gonna touch any of the electronics. Keep that in mind.” And Portland ushered him out onto the factory floor, amidst the bustle of Hayley and Lydia in a mad rush to assemble a body. They had latex gloves on, paper masks over their mouths, and large plastic goggles that covered just about every inch of their faces that the paper masks didn't touch.

  Thom realized it had been Lydia standing up from behind the body that had forced him back into the wall of the elevator. He would chide himself for it, if it weren't still a frightening sight, even now, knowing that it was just Lydia.

  “I, genius that I am, have devised a plan. Thanks to the abundance of plastics, it should be easy enough to mock up a close resemblance to our Hayley, here. And, thanks to Hayley Prime's time spent with that Truman guy, I know someone who owes me. It's all coming together quite nicely.”

  Thom couldn't quite see where she was going with this, but he did have a bit of an idea. “You're saying you're going to return a blank to the hospital?
”

  “Precisely.” She paused, for effect. “Well, not precisely. Close enough. But, not a blank, per-se. We're going to load it with some AI. Alex expects it to have little to none of the flesh in it, so we can go just about a hair over basic OS for it, and it should pass the initial inspection. Mei can fill in the rest.”

  Thom looked at her in askance, but, in a rare moment of psychic blindness, Portland did not get his query. He didn't want to say anything too loudly, with the plastic girl so close, but if they hadn't worked this out, then he saw a pretty big flaw in her plan. “What about Hayley? If you just take any old body back to the hospital, they're going to put her in it. You can't give her some sub-standard body, assembled over the course of a few hours in a basement.” Thom's whisper had grown in volume, but he had not seemed to notice.

  “We're working on figuring that out, Thom. In the meantime, this is what we're doing.”

  Thom and Portland were strolling past a wall of shelves, each one stocked end to end with heads of varying size, shape, and shade. Inspecting several of them as they went past made Thom think about another major flaw in Portland's plan. “Um, they know what Hayley looks like. You can't just drop off a blank with any face and body shape, and expect them to not see through the charade.”

  Portland tousled Thom's hair. “Got it covered, Sport. Alan's gonna take care of it.”

  That did not sound like an explanation to Thom, but he let it go, for now. He could always bring it up again, later, when the plan was obviously falling to pieces. That could be fun. “Okay, well, what about her hair? That was custom, too.”

  In response, Portland drew his attention to the far wall, where she swiped at a small disjointed section. The whole wall bifurcated, and the two halves slid away revealing shelving from floor to ceiling, each one packed like sardines with mannequin heads bearing wigs in every shade and hair type Thom could imagine.