Chapter 2 – Rebels #3
“Cathrin is our leader and looks after new arrivals personally,” he added gently as they got into a lift heading upwards.
“Depending on where they come from,” he explained, as they exited the lift and headed left down another brightly lit corridor, “they are either housed in a rescue centre for stranded refugees, where we mainly accommodate women and children who we’ve rescued from amoral governments and brutal magnates like Monty MacIntyre, or they stay in the soldiers’ accommodation, where we patch up injured hybrid soldiers and former combat robots like me in state-of-the-art labs and prepare them for the fight against the government.
But you’ll hear more about that once Cathrin’s met you. ”
“Is she a robot?” asked Marci warily, as she walked rapidly next to Jack with Willie in her arms, while Jack carried an exhausted and sleeping Logan.
“Cathrin?”
She nodded.
“No, Cathrin is human. She was Chief Design Engineer at MacIntyre before moving to CRU. After some unpleasant experiences there, she came to the conclusion that she didn’t want to use her brilliance in service of the war-hungry psychopaths of this world by providing them with compliant robot slaves.
She also found out that the robots installed with the personality programming she wrote were developing their own inner lives and that they experienced suffering as a combat or sex slave just like a human would in a similar situation.
Since then, she’s been determined to prevent any more robots from being created in order to re-establish balance in the world.
It doesn’t make sense to add more robots to an already overpopulated world.
Especially not for these purposes. It should be clear to anyone capable of halfway rational thought that robots should only be created to replace people currently working as human slaves.
Cathrin also believes that those machines who have already developed an inner life have a right to exist that shouldn’t be denied them.
” He stood still for a moment and directed a frighteningly intense look at her.
“Essentially, we’re not as different from a human as you might think,” he stated insistently.
“We experience pain and we have feelings that can be hurt. Above all, we have our own minds. We don’t only think completely independently, we act it too.
If MacIntyre or other governments learn of this, they will not stop hunting us down until we’ve all been destroyed.
And they’ll ensure that the programming is changed so that it can’t happen again.
That’s why we have to get the drop on them and stop them before it’s too late. This is our mission.”
Marci frowned and looked at him sceptically.
“And how did Cathrin evade the system and build all of this? I mean, MacIntyre and his competitors are bound to have joined forces with the PanAmerican government and they monitor everything. I can’t imagine he just happily let his employees walk out of the factory gates so they can then start up their own company? ”
“Cathrin had a lot of freedom,” explained Jack, “because her research work was incredibly successful. Also, the idea of creating the first lifelike, male sex robots didn’t come from Dr Tanaka or Rochelle MacIntyre, but from Cathrin Porter,” he added with a rueful smile.
“Cathrin thought it was unfair that only female robots were being designed for humans’ pleasure.
She wanted to create something similar for women that went beyond the normal mechanics of a sex robot.
Something that expressed feelings, catered for women’s wishes and didn’t just offer stupid compliments.
Someone you could have a decent conversation with. Someone…”
“Who could replace a human partner…” finished Marci, looking at him smiling.
“Exactly,” added Jack, clearing his throat.
“MacIntyre and his engineers, however, weren’t interested in a male robot that, in their words, would just sit up and beg.
The design was too challenging and not profitable enough.
Cathrin insisted on wanting to expand her emotional program for robots, though, and that’s why she was allowed to move to CRU; however, its boss, Dr Tanaka, was only interested in lifelike female sex robots and developing their ability to suffer specific perversions.
Initially, Cathrin played along and focused on developing female robots that cried and screamed when they were tormented for Tanaka’s amoral clientele.
It wasn’t until one of the women ended up covered in blood on Cathrin’s repair table in the lab, blew all her fuses after her processor was rebooted and she was due to be sent back to the customer, that Cathrin realised what had happened.
The female robot had experienced the suffering just as intensely as a human would have done.
As a result, Cathrin not only helped her escape but also fled with her.
They headed for the Canadian border in a stolen speed glider and stumbled across an awakened combat robot who was badly injured and hiding in an old mine.
He knew how to program gliders to get across the Canadian border unnoticed.
They immediately set about founding our organisation and rescued and supported more and more awakened robots.
They eventually discovered an ancient uranium mine and worked together to turn it into a rebel enclave.
There are now hundreds of us living here, with more arriving every day.
One day, we’ll have a whole army that can topple the ruling government and return order and peace to the world. ”
“Wow,” replied Marci nodding approvingly, although she wasn’t yet certain exactly how she felt about Jack’s revelations.
Jack indicated to Marci that they’d nearly arrived at Cathrin’s office, and she followed him with what he’d said still buzzing in her mind.
Even though she definitely didn’t agree with the current government, she was unsettled by the thought that the country might one day be run by robots, but she didn’t want to just blurt out her opinion before having a better understanding of Cathrin Porter and her allies.
“I don’t understand,” she queried with a sigh. “If CRU already knew how to build such robots, what role did Rochelle MacIntyre play?”
“When she divorced MacIntyre, Rochelle got a software package and his CRU shares as a settlement. Apparently, the package also contained an older version of the source code needed to equip a robot with the desired emotions. In all the rush, Cathrin had forgotten that this version still existed,” added Jack calmly.
“As Tanaka wasn’t interested in equipping his female robots with romantic abilities, he and MacIntyre didn’t care that Rochelle now had the code.
Presumably, Rochelle stumbled upon Cathrin’s original idea when she was looking through company documents and decided to revive it.
She then commissioned Tanaka to design a robotic lover but insisted on keeping the programming key.
And that keycode can’t be copied; it has to be inserted in each robot using a special programming chip and can’t simply be downloaded from a robot’s database, either, as it would destroy its entire programming.
Cathrin always saw this as a kind of life insurance so that MacIntyre didn’t simply get rid of her and give her job to someone else.
Rochelle knew about it and didn’t trust her business partners either, that’s part of why she didn’t grant her ex-husband any of the expected profit.
Tanaka didn’t have a share, but he did get a vast salary.
In terms of wealth, had the deal come to fruition, Rochelle would definitely have been on a par with her ex. ”
“And because you couldn’t let that happen, she was killed and CRU was blown up,” replied Marci as quietly as possible, not wanting to wake up the boys.
“No, that’s not it and I didn’t kill Rochelle either!
” said Jack, his patience clearly wearing thin.
“We were only interested in the old source code. We had to stop it from falling into the wrong hands again. I just put her into a temporary sleep so I could get the chip out of her safe undetected and flee with it. I don’t know who killed her afterwards. ”
“And who blew up the CRU labs? Was that someone else, too?”
“No, that was us,” he admitted flatly. “But no humans were killed.”
“What about robots?” She raised an eyebrow and looked at him questioningly.
“Maybe.”
“And where do I fit into this? I mean, it was a funny coincidence that I of all people was in the house when you attacked Rochelle.”
“That wasn’t a coincidence,” he shrugged apologetically.
“We planned everything. Just like it wasn’t a coincidence that MacIntyre LLC chose your Will as a hybrid candidate.
MacIntyre was looking for the right humans for his hybrid programme and Rochelle gave him Will’s name because you worked for her so she knew of his existence.
But we only found that out later. And she would have used you and the children for her horrible experiments anyway, sooner or later.
MacIntyre has already developed a program that can turn women and children into compliant hybrid robots. ”
Marci stopped abruptly, causing Willie Junior to stretch sleepily in her arms. “Rochelle was capable of doing something like that? Are you sure?” she asked alarmed.
“Cathrin found out all about it from an agent who sits on the board of directors at MacIntyre LLC. I’m sorry,” he said curtly, “but it’s all part of a collusion – the various robot manufacturers are all in it together. Rochelle was part of it, too, even though she’d separated from her husband.”
“And how did you come to play the part of a sex robot?” asked Marci in disbelief. “I mean, you would have to have known that Rochelle was expecting a delivery of one?”