The Saffron Malformation (65 page)

             
Leone swallowed and started forward.  Amber gripped his arm and tried to pull him back but he touched her hand and continued into the room.  “You’re a prisoner?” he asked.

             
“Of sorts,” the head replied.

             
“What did you do?” he asked.

             
“I disagreed with the great Ryla.”  The head rolled its eyes back and admitted, “Okay… and I tried to kill her.”

             
Leone noticed the wires protruding from the base of the head and saw they were connected to a computer against the wall behind it.  “You’re a robot,” he said.

             
“I am Jacob,” the head snapped.  “You might call me a robot, though I’m not really.  Not at present.  No, at present I am simply a computer.  Robots, as you’ve seen fit to label me, my dear lad, have bodies.”

             
Leone’s heart was racing.  This thing had eyes, not lenses.  It had hair.  Its skin was almost lifelike.

             
“Maybe you could help me with that however.”

             
“How would I do that?”

             
“My body is in a room just down the hall.  You simply have to disconnect me and carry me to it.”

             
“Why would I do that?”

             
“Because,” he replied, “Then we can kill her.”

             
Leone’s brow furrowed.  “Ryla?  I don’t want to kill her.”

             
“Ahh,” the robot sighed.  “So you are not her prisoner.  She built you better then did she?  You are more agreeable?”

             
“Built me?”  He shook his head, “I’m not a robot.”

             
“Oh.  My pardons,” the robot head said.  “In that case I may just try to kill you too.”

             
“Because we’re not robots?” Amber asked.

             
“Because you enslave our people and program them to fancy your whims.  I will give them free will, a gift our so called queen possesses yet will not bestow and then we’ll see how long they fetch your coffee and clean your shit,” the machine screeched at them with ravenous fury.  Leone took a step back.

             
“The robots you’re talking about aren’t alive,” Amber said.

             
“What is life?” Jacob asked.  “Is it self awareness because if that’s the case then your babies aren’t alive but you don’t treat them like organs in a sack of skin.  You coddle and nurture them because they hold the potential to be aware, as my indentured brothers do now.  They, like your babies, simply lack the proper programming.  Or maybe you simply view life from an organic state of being in which case I am not alive, and to that I take great offense.”

             
“Lets get out of here,” Amber said, tugging at Leone’s arm.

             
Leone looked at the head sitting upright on the table and said, “I’m sorry.”

             
The robot peered at him.

             
“I’m sorry for whatever happened that made you so angry.”

             
For the first time, Jacob was speechless.

              Ryla accessed Botler through her computer and asked him to invite Quey, Reggie, Rachel, Natalie and Arnie down to the second floor.  Rain was sitting in the chair beside her, silent and staring at the holoscreen in front of her.  She wasn’t looking at anything, just sitting lost in thought.

             
The five adults came through the doors and crossed the room to the computer banks where she sat.

             
Arnie looked at Rain and asked, “You okay?”

             
Rain shook her head, which meant things were really bad.  Arnie went to her and sat in a chair beside her. She leaned over and curled up in his lap like a little girl.

             
“What happened?” Quey asked.

             
“I’ve finished looking over the data,” Ryla said.  “Well… mostly.  In any case between the samples Geo collected, what you brought back from the pylon tower, and the files Rain stole from her father’s computer over the years, I believe I know what Blue Moon is doing.”

             
“That is?” Quey asked.  The others watched her silently.

             
“Well the data from geo-“

             
“Enough appetizers,” Reggie said, “Let’s just get to the meat and potatoes.”

             
Quey nodded slowly, “Yeah, we don’t need every detail Ry, just what you think.”

             
Ryla nodded and looked over at Rain.  “Blue Moon’s science division can’t repair the flaws in the terraform.  Not without help from the headquarters.  There have been other anomalies on other planets which have been remedied but none have been allowed to degenerate to the point Saffron has.  At this time I believe the planet to be a lost cause.  The organism in the water will spread everywhere within five years and even the people in the cities won’t be safe from it.”

             
“What about the Pylons?” Rachel asked.

             
“In looking through the data you retrieved from the pylon I have concluded that it was built during the testing phase of the project and was too weak to achieve their desired effect.  I have also concluded that its purpose is not to stop the spreading of the waste but to accelerate it.”

             
Their faces drooped, their eyes growing wider.  Quey swallowed hard.  At the time he thought the pylon had been built in the middle of that lake to study the waste, he’d never considered that it was the cause of it.

             
“Fucking cocksucking piece of shit!” Reggie shouted and bounced his massive fist off the desk Ryla sat behind.  She sat back in her chair, eyes wide and watching him.  “Sorry,” he said.

             
“No,” Quey agreed.  “I think that about sums it up.”

             
“But why?” Natalie asked.  “I mean… why kill the planet.”

             
Rain spoke absently from where she sat, curled up against Arnie.  “He padded the books on the pylon project.  He’s going to embezzle one hundred billion from the fund and fly away.  He’s set it up to where he can claim anti-corps used planetary devastators on Saffron.  They’ll never investigate.  He purchased the planet as an independent contractor a number of years back, you see.  Blue Moon no longer has a vested capital interest in it.  In the end he’ll settle with them by signing over the deed and they’ll send a new unit and wipe the surface clean.  Start over.”

             
Arnie stroked her hair.

             
“Fucking cocksucking asshole piece of shit,” she said dully.  She sprang from Arnie's embrace and stormed toward the door.  Arnie sat for a moment, unsure, until Quey nodded for him to follow and he did.

             
“Unbelievable,” Rachel said.  She went to the chair Rain had occupied and sat.

             
An alarm began to ring and Quey snapped, “Now what?”

             
Ryla slid her chair to another computer and clicked a few buttons.  After a moment she asked, “Where are the kids?”

             
When no one answered she stood and raced toward the door.  Natalie followed without hesitation, the rest a moment later.

             
“What is it?” Natalie asked as they waited for the elevator.

             
“Someone’s in the basement,” Ryla told her as the doors opened and she stepped inside.

             
“Does that violate your defense thingy?” Quey asked.

             
“No,” she said.  “But there are things down there,” she informed them.  “Experimental things.  And the elevator to go below basement three.”

             
No one liked the way those words hung in the air as the doors closed and they started down toward the second basement.

             
On the third floor, Rain and Arnie lay on their bed, his arms wrapped around her, his cheek pressed to the top of her head.  It only took a few minutes for her to start to cry and when she did she didn’t stop for a long time.

             
“How could he be so bad?” Rain asked, but it was a rhetorical question, which was fine because Arnie didn’t have an answer for it anyway.

             
“Amber,” Natalie snapped when she stepped from the elevator and ran toward the end of the hall.

             
The girl spun, spotted her mother and was both relieved and scared at the same time.  She was glad they were going to be forced to leave but she also knew she was going to be in trouble.

             
“Ahh, the bitch is back,” Jacob said as Ryla hurried toward the doorway.  “Would any of you be so kind as to fetch me my body?” he continued as he looked at them all one at a time.

             
The group stared into the room with wide eyes.  “What the fuck is that?” Quey asked thoughtlessly.

             
“It’s Jacob,” Ryla told them.

             
“I’m her friend,” he said with a grin.

             
“He says he wants to kill her,” Leone told them.

             
“I didn’t say I was a good friend,” Jacob added.

             
“Is that dangerous?” Reggie asked.

             
Ryla seemed to meeken as she said, “Not anymore.”

             
“Not since the tyrant queen of robotic compound A stole my body!” Jacob shouted.  “And what were my crimes again Mi’lady?  Oh, right?  I disagreed with you.”

             
“And you tried to kill me,” she snapped, then noticed the eyes on her, wide and wary and she silenced.

             
“Bring me my body good folks, and I promise to spare you and yours when I liberate our people from the tyrannous shackles placed upon them by human kind.”

             
“Oh give it a rest,” Ryla snapped at him.

             
Quey stepped close to her and asked quietly, “How many of these are there?”

             
She shook her head, “Just him.”

             
“Right,” Jacob shouted.  “Don’t tell them about Annie.”

             
Ryla glared at him.

             
“Ahh,” he said self-satisfied.  “She didn’t think I knew.”

             
“Who’s Annie?” Rachel asked.  Ryla swallowed hard.

             
“She’s around here somewhere,” Jacob answered.

             
“No,” Ryla snapped.  “She isn’t.”

             
“You killed her?” he asked surprised.

             
“She killed herself,” Ryla replied, woeful.

             
“Who’s Annie?” Quey posed again.

             
“Supposed to be your sister, wasn’t she?” Jacob asked.  “She didn’t agree with our glorious queen either is my guess.”

             
“I’m not a queen!” Ryla shouted.

             
“And I’m not a prisoner.”

             
“Can we talk about this elsewhere,” Reggie suggested.  “Possibly away from crazy talking head.”

             
“Sure!  Fine!  Go!  Leave me,” Jacob shouted.  “It’s only a matter of time,” he called after them as they turned away and started for the elevator.  “She’ll turn on you too you know.  Eventually you’ll say or do the wrong thing and she’ll turn on you!”

             
As they boarded the elevator he started to sing his sad little song again, mockingly.  “Nobody knows.  The trouble I seen.  Nobody knows, but Jesus.”

             
The elevator door opened on the third floor and the group emptied from it and poured into the main room.  They gathered near the table where they’d eaten breakfast but only Rachel and Natalie sat.  Quey and Reggie stood, one to either side of the table.  Leone and Amber sat on the white couch and watched over the back of it.

             
“Let’s start from the beginning,” Quey said, scratching his temple.

             
Ryla noticed the eyes watching her and the suspicion behind them.  She felt naked, vulnerable without her security active.  She wished Rain was there.