Chapter 6 – The Killing Fields #8
He held the three of them tightly and looked at Marci as a single tear rolled down her cheek and into his auburn stubble.
“But I’m not competing with Will,” he stated firmly after the boys had skipped away whooping into their room. “I know that I can’t replace him and I don’t want to…”
“You don’t have to,” she whispered. “I will carry Will in my heart forever, and I have my boys, but there’s plenty of space for you.
I love you, Jack, and I can’t imagine a life without you.
I know that Will wouldn’t mind. After all, it was his wish that you should look after us and that means you belong with us. ”
“Yes,” murmured Jack, feeling quite light-headed with happiness. I really can’t express how grateful I am to him.”
Before the first wedding between a robot and a human woman could take place in Hunters Lane, Cathrin Porter called a meeting in her personal quarters for everyone who had been involved in “Operation Iron Heart”.
Jack and Marci went to the meeting together, and Silver came with his entire team of technicians – a total of fifteen people who’d managed all the threads of communication behind the scenes throughout the operation.
“I want to offer my heartfelt congratulations to you all,” Cathrin announced, handing them all an alcohol-free drink to toast their success.
“Thanks to Jack and Marci creating such turmoil in MacIntyre’s production facilities, we were able to evacuate more than two hundred hybrid soldiers, who are now safely accommodated in our second base near here.
We’re currently trying to locate their families and bring them to safety, too.
The plans for further operations are already underway.
As some of you feared, because MacIntyre 2 and the fake Tanaka are robot copies of the original humans, created by me, we must assume they’ve killed the real MacIntyre and his chief engineer.
And because the consciousness of both robot copies has awakened and they managed to escape before they could be destroyed, it is also safe to assume that they’re bent on revenge.
And not just revenge; we fear they are gathering an army against us, with the aim of annihilating us.
They also want to ensure that the manhunt for us by the government’s forces is intensified, particularly as we haven’t yet found a way to convince our heads of state who – or more precisely, what – those two actually are.
We need to assume that they’ll start replacing the boards of directors in MacIntyre’s companies and their chief engineers with robot copies.
Tanaka has obviously managed to copy key sections of Jack’s emotional programming, fortunately without doing him any serious damage.
By copying directly from Jack’s brain, MacIntyre and his chief engineer will be able to develop their own source code, and this will make it easier for them to give robots a human personality and covertly replace humans with robots.
All the publicity around the escort robots will gain the trust of more high-powered individuals and encourage them to get involved, making it quicker and easier to replace them.
The risk of this happening is greater than ever.
I’ll be honest, we’ve got a hard task ahead of us and I’ll need your full support, so I’m incredibly grateful for your loyalty and understanding.
I need you to help me contain the disaster that I unwittingly set in motion by working for MacIntyre and his company. ”
Cathrin’s inner circle of around fifty team members – both humans and robots – applauded enthusiastically as she moved onto the next topic.
“We’ve won this battle, but not yet the war,” she said with a smile.
“Our next mission will be to convince the President of the PanAmerican Alliance to end his collaboration with MacIntyre as quickly as possible. If he doesn’t, it’ll be his head on the chopping block.
I’ll let the agents who are going to be involved know when the operation will begin.
Silver and his team have already started preparing, as we’ll need secure paths of communication – as always – to ensure our cover doesn’t get blown.
” She raised her glass to Silver and then turned to Marci and Jack.
“And as for you two – I knew straight away that you’d make a perfect team,” she said with a wise smile.
“So I’m thrilled to hear that you want to continue your relationship as a couple.
You not only showed incredible courage in MacIntyre’s production hell, but you’re also living proof that in the face of all the critics, humans and robots can find common ground and can love and respect each other. ”
“We have Marci to thank for that,” said Jack quietly, giving his wife a conspiratorial wink, just as he did when they first met.
Without further ado, they all raised a glass and cried in unison, “To the happy couple!”
Marci pulled Jack’s head down to her. “To love,” she whispered, giving him a gentle kiss.
The End