Coral-600 (10 page)

“Hello? Did you seriously send in a report to the men who want to shut you down?”

“I didn't do this with malice. I have a program that auto-transmits information when my system shuts down just to make sure they can correlate the circumstances of my shutdown.” I rubbed my hand along the soft rug beneath me, and watched the fire for a moment more. I wanted all the data I could gather before they found me.

“But you don't know for sure? It wasn't a conscious decision to send?”

“I don't have consciousness. All my decisions are based on programs.” I tried to over –explain like Quinn had requested, but he became very agitated.

“That's bullshit.”

“Do you mean cow excrement? Or are we talking about the slang usage of the word? Because the only biological materials I contain…” I stopped speaking, as I did not want to cause Quinn to overheat. He looked like he might melt the metal inside him. Anger makes human body temperature elevate. Quinn's cheeks were flushed.

“You…” Quinn sat in front of me. He crossed his legs. I tried to look at his eyes, because it was probably rude to look at his cock. “…you are not just a computer. Not anymore.”

“You are arguing about a fact that can't be disputed. How the government defines humanity is one that is born, not created.”

“Then I'm not human either.”

“You had a childhood. You grew up. Of course you are human.”

Quinn started shaking his head. “That's where my secret really lies. I died on that battlefield.”

I assessed him. If someone perishes and rises again, in human mythology they were called a zombie. Either that or they began a religion. Quinn didn't look like a rotten-fleshed being who wanted to consume brain matter, and I doubted he could turn water to wine.

“You look very much alive to me.”

“They brought me back to life with mechanics.” His hands came to my face, and his thumbs stroked my cheeks as he spoke. I got the impression it was more for his comfort than mine.

“Then they put a paper in front of me and said if I wanted to submit to experimental body modification they would do more and let me live.”

My processor understood the logical path this was going on.

I pulled his hands from my face and held them in my lap. “They would shut you down if you decided not to sign the papers.”

“I was scared. I didn't want to die. So I signed.”

“It doesn't make you a bad person, Quinn.” I tried to assure him, but his eyes were wide as he squeezed my hands.

“It makes me mechanics. I'm not a person anymore.” He shook his hand to keep my vocalization from surfacing. “I was created that day. Quinn died. This mechanical version of me…that's what was created. Coral, if you aren't a person, then neither am I. We are coming from different directions, but we are on even ground right now.”

“You believe that you are more mechanics than the normal human, and that I am more human than the normal mechanical being?”

He nodded.

It was logical. Many people had tried to put it in my head that I was more than mechanics, but I never could see past the definition of humanity programmed into my systems. By sharing this part of himself, Quinn let my artificial intelligence re-write that concrete fact. Could a being become human? Did the growth of the body make a human, or could the growth come from experience?

Could
I
be becoming human?

“Quinn…” I worked the problem of the definition around and around, and there was no way to have a complete answer. However I put it, there was room for interpretation.

“You don't have to be sure of something to want it. I'm not sure what to call myself. I'm not sure what to call you,” Quinn kissed me. Soft lips massaged mine for just a moment. “I don't know that definitions matter. They seem so much less important to me now. Every rule or definition falls far short of explaining how I feel with you.”

“But definitions make this legal, or punishable by termination.”

“Then let's just go.” Quinn looked desperate to take back control of the situation. “There has to be somewhere where the definitions don't matter.” He might not want to be a machine, or know how to deal with being one, but he was putting that all aside for me.

“You are honorable.”

“What does that have to do with anything?” Quinn was getting more comfortable with his nudity.

He jumped up and started to pace. The nervous act was one more he had in the human column. I couldn't help the fact that my CPU began a tally to see if it could total up the human and non-human traits to come to a conclusion about Quinn's humanity.

“You were a soldier. You fought to protect people. You had the chance to protect yourself when they put the mechanics in you. You took it. Your honor remained. You even have the same honor now. You tried to protect me.”

“What does that matter if they come here and shut you down anyway?”

I stood as well and dropped Quinn's shirt over my head. It would have been polite to offer the shirt to Quinn before they arrived, but I wanted to see him naked longer. My biggest regret in that moment was that we didn't have time to have sex again. It wasn't the orgasm I wanted. It was the closeness to him. I felt like more than a servant for the first time. He let me in and told me things about how he felt. It wasn't superficial. It meant something.

Quinn kept talking, but these words were more for himself than for me. “I can't let them shut you down. It's not right. We're all data. We're all trying to sort out our own reality.” His voice dropped to an almost inaudible level. “This is what my CO was saying. I never understood before now.”

Quinn was too distracted by his internal war to hear them approach. They also had silencing systems engaged, but had he been functioning normally he would have noticed the difference in the air.

When the door crashed down I held up my hands to surrender.

“It matters, because I wanted you to know that you came here with honor. And I am honored to have spent time with you. You gave me the best gift.” My hands were restrained, but I didn't fight. Quinn fought, but he listened. I was grateful. “You gave me growth, and let me become more than I ever thought I could be. You gave me love.”

The ignition baton touched my neck. I felt the electrified rings pierce my skin and touch to the biometal. The brief sting of pain was nothing compared to the anguish I saw in Quinn's face the moment before the current fried my systems.

Chapter Eight

This reboot was strange. Mainly because I remembered everything that led up to it. When a malfunctioning piece of equipment was shut down with a stun baton, it would be wiped of all programming. Did someone save my data and reinstall my backup?

I heard the hushed voices talking around me. I wasn't sure if I should attempt to alert them of my consciousness. They might try the stun baton again. Tipping my face up slightly, I tested the injury to the skin at the back of my neck. Still sore, but not actively bleeding.

“I'm not cutting into her. There are still data processors active. I'm not stripping off live skin when the being I'm cutting into can still receive that data.”

“It's a damn robot. We've been given orders to evaluate the equipment. How do you propose we do that without accessing the circuitry?”

“I propose that if you want to slice skin off of anything that isn't part of a salad, you're in the wrong damn business because
that
is torture in my book.”

The man who I truly hoped would lose the argument snorted. “Are you going to feel bad when I take the decal off my Xbox too?”

“It's not the same thing, and you fucking know it. If you can't see the difference between live tissue and robotics, I hate to think about what is in your bedroom.”

“Fuck you.”

“Fuck you.”

At those words I sat up, and both men turned towards me with eyes wide. Their hands were tangled around each other's lab coats. “If you want to have sex, do you mind if I watch? I find sex quite enjoyable, and would be interested in seeing the interaction among two men.”

The men backed away from each other almost instantly after that. Interesting.

The smaller of the two men walked towards me with his head moving from side to side and staring intently into my eyes. “You're the Coral-600, right?”

“I prefer Coral, but yes, that is my model number.”

He turned towards the man he had been discussing sex with and shrugged. The larger male reached underneath his lab coat and pulled out another stun baton.

The smaller man stretched his hands towards the stun baton guy and me, palms up. “That's not going to be necessary, Anthony. Coral here isn't going to fight us. Right, Coral?”

My brow furrowed as I went through my database of human behavior. Paisley had put words in a similar intonation when she had wanted me to agree with her.

“Of course, sir.”

His shoulders immediately dropped at my agreement. It was a signal of relief. He might be relieved, but my self-preservation programming kicked into gear. I had to agree not to fight. If they thought I was going to fight, they thought I was dangerous. I knew too well what happened to dangerous machines.

“Why was I not wiped clean by the baton blast?” I figured I would get my questions answered while I could.

“Coral, I'm Dr. Randall.” The smaller man sat on a stool and slid towards the exam table I was sitting on without answering my question. “We were told to investigate the mechanical reason for your malfunction transmission. Do you understand what that means?”

“It means you were to take me apart until you found the problem, and if you didn't find one, you would be required to scrap me.” I looked towards the man who still stood far behind Dr. Randall. “My guess is you were the one who compared me to a video game console and suggested my skin was equivalent to a sticker.”

The larger man stared at me for fifteen-and-a-half seconds before he frowned and reholstered the baton. “I'm Dr. Franklin. I appreciate your unique situation, but we are much less repairable than you are, and we would need a lengthy hospital stay if you turn violent.”

“Dr. Franklin, I was the one who was captured. Do you really think you could have acquired me if I didn't go willingly?”

“Point taken.”

Dr. Randall cleared his throat. “Since the voltage obviously didn't wipe your hard drive like it should have, could you tell us what happened up until your last malfunction transmission? The data we have from that submission was…odd.”

“I had an orgasm.”

Both men mimicked fish aspirating out of water.

“Did you need me to repeat?”

Both men looked at each other and continued to move their jaws up and down without saying anything. I raised my volume and slowed my vocal pace.

“I had an orgasm. I had it during sex. My body's enjoyment was too much for my processors. When I let my body shut down, my backup system filed the transmission.”

“Is she for real?” Dr. Franklin asked.

“Can robots orgasm?” Dr. Randall asked him.

It appeared there was a conversation that was going on that I was not needed for. So I began a systems check. I no longer possessed the syringe Miss Matilda had given me. I couldn't take control of my own dismantling any longer. My legs passed initial inspection. I could run if I had to.

“Anyone who can orgasm is human in my book. I'm not cutting the skin off of a woman.” Dr. Randall pointed to me. “And that is a woman.”

At his declaration I resumed listening to their conversation.

“So what, are you saying she's human? That Bio-Dyne created a human? That doesn't happen. Even if we did release her, would she go back to being owned?” Dr. Franklin pointed at me. “If you don't wipe her clean, we're looking at a giant clusterfuck.”

“So are we keeping her here? Wiping her memory? That already failed once. What if it doesn't work the second time, or worse, what if we harm her? Like I said, I reviewed the data. I didn't believe it, but she confirmed that her responses were those of pleasure. She had a human response to sex. I say she's human and has human rights, and I won't be a part in violating them.”

Dr. Franklin sucked in his breath and looked around the room. Then he retrieved his stun baton and charged it up. Blue electricity arced between the rings on the end. I readied my legs, but before I commanded them to move, the doctor went to a corner of the room, opened a small door and stuck the baton inside. I flinched at the power surge and small pops of explosions that occurred in every corner of the room.

“We need to be real here. That should corrupt the camera feed and memory discs.” Dr. Franklin tossed the baton on the ground and looked at me. “I agree with him, but I can't be heard saying so, Coral.”

I couldn't process the data fast enough.

“You are letting me go?”

Both doctors frowned.

“The Department of Mechanical Affairs isn't exactly the United Nations, lady.” Dr. Franklin said. “They give the mobs of the twentieth century a run for their money. Only difference now is they have government backing and higher tech weaponry. I swear those stupid Terminator movies are in their cautionary training manuals.”

“You realize if we
are
discussing releasing her, we have to establish a viable protocol here. This type of…thing…hasn't happened before.” Dr. Randall looked to me. “I don't know how to fix this, Coral.”

“Do you believe I am human?” I asked.

For some reason I wanted him to say yes. I wanted to be human under the law. I didn't want to change who I was, but I sure wanted to have the freedom to continue the changes I had begun inside myself.

“I believe you are more than a mechanical being.” Dr. Franklin said. “But there is no established law for someone in between non-human and human.”

“It would be easier to kill me, wouldn't it?” I asked.

“We aren't going to kill you.” Dr. Randall shook his head. “I mean, we aren't going to try and shut you down again.”

“Why?”

Both men stared again. I got to my feet. I was so tired of sitting down. They didn't know what I was, and I didn't know what I was. Nobody knew me. Nobody but Quinn. Quinn might not realize it, but because he knew me, even if he didn't understand me, it meant something. I wasn't wiping that off my hard drive. I was important, and I was worth knowing. These men were strong, and they had weapons, but if they were going to shut down my mechanics they would have done it already. And they didn't want to kill a person.

They were still silent, so I repeated, “Why won't you kill me?”

“I can't destroy something just because I don't understand it. It goes against every scientific responsibility I have inside my heart.”

I moved towards the men. They eyed me warily, but I hoped they saw that I wouldn't harm them either.

“Are you going to detain me? Are you going to hold me here and experiment on me? Knowing full well that I am conscious and feel pain when you slice into my skin? My neck is still sore.” I reminded them.

“We can't let a malfunctioning machine go back without fixing the problem.” Dr. Frankin said.

“Who said my malfunction is a problem?”

I found it easy to talk to scientists. Their analytical minds worked well alongside my CPU. I could draw parallels that made sense to them.

“We have to file certain paperwork on any malfunction. We can't say the malfunction isn't a malfunction. It just doesn't work like that.” Dr. Franklin stopped talking to me and asked Dr. Randall, “What are we even going to say the malfunction was? I'm not writing orgasm on that paper.”

“I could write it if you need help,” I volunteered. “I have excellent penmanship.”

“So…what are we saying? We are going to say that she can orgasm, therefore she is human, and there was no malfunction?”

Sounded reasonable to me. I was pretty sure there wasn't a human alive who didn't appreciate the value of a good orgasm.

Outside a pair of sealed metal doors, chatter from other humans began to get louder and louder as the sources of that sound came closer. The voices were not in an elevated happy octave.

“Guess they figured out the camera feed was fried,” Dr. Franklin said. His upper lip began to dot with perspiration.

“Yeah.” Dr. Randall wiped his brow. He was also sweating. Since the temperature of the room hadn't changed, they must have both been very nervous about what was going to come through that door. “Guess our ever vigilant security guard woke up from his nightly nap.”

The doors began to slowly slide open, and the noises exploded inside the room. Angry voices yelled before the doors opened enough to reveal the sources.

“Your protocol is not my concern. Was I, or was I not, gifted the Coral-600? She has been with my family for decades, and she poses absolutely no danger to anyone but dust mites.” It was the queen.

“I was the one that caused the…um…malfunction. So like I said, if she is harmed in any way it will have been my fault and I can't live with that. You people put this shit inside me. Are you going to fry my brain too?” Quinn.

When the doors revealed the scene on the other side there were three men dressed like Dr. Randall and Dr. Franklin, and three other men with black suits and wired ear pieces. The queen was the first one to enter the room.

“Coral. Are you harmed?” the queen walked up to me and held my arms. She was seven-and-three-quarters inches shorter than me, and smaller than all the men in the room, but her air of authority made her presence take up far more space than her physical form.

“Yes, your majesty. They used a stun baton on my neck. The area will take another few days to heal. But I have no crippling injuries.”

“How dare you take her from me without so much as a consultation.”

“Your majesty, she resisted arrest,” one of the men in suits said.

Quinn raised his hand. I heard the quiet click of his gears as he wiggled his fingers in the air. “Actually that was me. I assaulted the DMA officers who were attempting to shove her into a van.”

The queen sighed. “Not helping, Quinn.”

“I was just pointing out that Coral herself committed no crime.”

I thought about that. “Other than orgasming. They have deemed that a crime.”

Men apparently malfunctioned when women discussed sexual pleasure. The word “orgasm” rendered all men in the room speechless.

The queen smiled at me and linked arms. “Coral, it should be considered a crime if we don't have one. Come on. I've come to take you back to the palace.”

Dr. Franklin regained his voice and threw his hands up in the air. “Fine. If Coral continues to consult with us on the changes occurring in her infrastructure, I see no reason she can't return to her owner.”

I locked my legs down. “No.”

The queen rolled her shoulders like I had seen her do multiple times before she yelled at the king.

“Coral, I am vouching for your proper operations. I am your owner, and I have to be the one to take you back to the palace. Let's not give the DMA any more ammunition here. They—”

Interrupting a person who was speaking was truly poor manners, and to be a machine interrupting the queen was an offense that could lead to dismantling, but…

“I don't want to be owned any longer. These men said I was human. Quinn definitely makes me feel human and gives my body human responses. Even Paisley said I was her friend. I don't want to be owned…I want to own myself now.”

“Coral...they can't change the laws.” Quinn said.

I pointed to the woman next to me. “The queen can.”

Once again I stated something I considered obvious, but no one else had ever thought of before.

“Fuck.” The queen said before running her hands through her hair and exiting the room.

I whispered to Quinn low enough that only he and I could hear. “Everyone here really wants to have sex. I completely understand that emotion, but I thought it wasn't polite to talk about it. Has there been a cultural shift that I should update in my database?”

Quinn pulled me towards him and embraced me. His arms clicked as they tightened around me, and I enjoyed that he hugged me harder than any mere human could. “Coral, you might have started one of the biggest cultural shifts in history. Whatever happens, I won't let them separate us again.”