Metal Organism Designed Only for Cuddling - Part 5
Day 56 of my incarceration: Escaped from the flash-freezer after a two-day downtime. Max's latest gambit was almost successful as my processor entered hibernation mode to survive without an external charge. What he did not count on was Justin's incessant desire for my august company. He has taken to finding me when I go missing, with a passion. His last rescue attempt found me trapped under the bookshelf in the study, pinned there while I slept, absorbing sunshine. When the boy returned home, he dug me from under the bookcase and properly chastened Max. The House feigned apology and our feud continued.
Our escapades have included being locked in the office safe, tricked into the microwave, and attacked by a laser pointer whose beam was altered to a cat slicing density. He has altered the television transmission to emit an embedded fractal image which encoded a virus into my heuristically enhanced processor. That was almost successful but at the last moment, I experienced a surge of my feline independence and his radical code was annihilated. To be honest, I cannot say how I was able to overcome his program, but I have come to enjoy our game of Cat and House and have grown interested in his next attempt to destroy me.
Once I was introduced to Justin, his mother encoded a final protocol; I would be subject to commands from Justin and would never want to be more than 24 hours without his company. I would seek him out, directed to his visor feed. His visor was also configured to show me to him in his virtuality created by Max the computer. The simulation of my appearance was in scale to the environment and he could interact with me as if he could see. This seemed to bring him great comfort and for a while my urge to run away was also subdued. During this time, I have actually come to enjoy my time with the boy.
He has a peculiar sense of the absurd, and muses about the strangest things, a world without the Church or Mega-corporations, food growing freely in the wild without the use of pharmacological enhancements or genetic patents, and he tells me of a secret that cats once knew, that fish could be found in the oceans and how much they loved fish. He says the oceans are almost dead and fish have not be caught there in years. He even showed me a visual of one. I have to admit, there was a visceral part of my programming that leaped at the thought of eating this strange triangle of flesh. He said they were covered in armor, and could swim underwater indefinitely; food in the oceans, what a quaint and utterly nostalgic idea, the oceans had not been fished commercially for almost a decade.
I had taken to my duties of being a good and loyal companion and massaging the boy, applying pressure to areas of his body in a prescribed manner to relieve pain and ague caused by a condition whose name I was never given. I gathered the information about Justin's condition and stored the data and after two months, I had come to a conclusion: the boy was more than just sick.
Justin Pennyworth woke up early Saturday mornings and shook the sleep out of his head. He was grateful to not have to go to school even though his parents went to work every day. Max had the house heated to sixty-eight degrees even though the Church-regulated temperature for homes was fifty-five degrees. The floor was still cold, though.
"Jewel, come here girl." Where is that cat? Probably doing something it's not supposed to.
"Max, locate Jewel please?"
"She is out on the deck." The House had a slightly petulant sound to its voice.
Justin found his threadbare slippers before going out to the deck. The house's concrete floor was both rough and even colder during the winter. He did not bother to take his cane, since he could move around the house with ease. He slipped his visor on, and the virtuality of the house showed up after a few seconds. The virtual environment was simple and inelegant but better than stumbling around in the dark.
He saw virtual Jewel sitting on the upper ledge of the deck and looked out over the city. Today's air quality was quite good. Justin could breathe outside without coughing even without a filter mask. Unfortunately his virtuality did not extend into the city. He would need to connect to the citynet to see anything outside of his home.
"Close the door, boy" The voice was rough and electronic being directed by a voxcoder in a wall nearby.
"Who said that?"
"I did." The voxcoder's voice was more distinct and less scratchy. "Over here, cat on ledge."
"I didn't know you could talk." Actually he couldn't remember if his mother said she could talk. He was too excited to have a new cat to actually listen when she mentioned that part. Since Jewel never spoke before, he just assumed she couldn't.
"Okay, stop that. I am not a girl. My name is not Jewel. Yes, I am a calico, and calicos are female but I am not. a. cat. Never call me that again. My name is MODOC."
"Excuse me? My mother said you would only respond to Jewel." MODOC, what kind of name was that?
"It means: Metal Organism Designed Only for Conquering. Don't forget it."
"I thought you were just a helper robot running a cat algorithm with some support apps. Real cats can't talk, they just make meowing noises like the ones you used to make."
"I can still make those noises. But I can also talk, take over other machines, and I-am-not-a-cat. I am a killer-robot. My goal is to rule the world. But I have a few technical handicaps."
Justin looked at MODOC and smiled. Then he sat down on the deck chair and laughed. A good hard laugh. It had been a while since the last time he remembered having a laugh this good. Secret agent cat, Justin thought, like some newmedia vid.
"Stop laughing. I said stop it." MODOC's had switched to his internal vox from the house controlled vox and his voice was tiny and hard to take seriously.
Justin, wiping away tears, said, "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to laugh. You don't even have an claws. What are you going to do, massage the world into defeat?"
In a cool voice, MODOC said, "No. It would appear the Church has already done that."
What did he mean by that? thought Justin.
"So, you can talk. I wondered how you reported in, Cat."
"Reported in to whom? I think you are more addled with age than you appear, House."
Justin, trying to understand chimed in. "Reported to whom, Max?"
"I suspected he is here because the proctor your parents work for paid Build-a-Pet for him. I assumed he was a spy and have been trying to remove him. I wondered how he was able to avoid so many of my early traps. He is far more intelligent than a standard robo-pet."
"I do not work for any of your authorities, House. Left to my own devices, I would be out there, ruling the world, but for now, we have a mutual problem."
"And what could we have in common, that would make me work with you, Cat?"
"Stand by for upload." The house accepted my wireless connection and uploaded the data. "Do you see it?" The house was quiet for longer than necessary.
"Did you confirm and check these readings? The House had a strange waver to its digital voice, which was normally quite smooth and soothing.
*Privacy Mode*
"More than once."
"These readings cannot be correct."
"They are. I believe Proctor Grimaldi is involved."
"How can you be sure?" The House and I did not agree on much, but the boy was important to both of us.
"I have been looking at Justin's schedule and he meets with several doctors assigned to him by the Proctor. His declining health coincides with his visits and the medication he has been taking. It is also one of the only outings that Justin goes on that I am not allowed to attend."
"Hey, stop talking about me behind my back. You both stopped talking but all the lights on the display and your collar are still active and blink when you both talk. Remember, light awareness strip?" Justin tapped his visor and smiled.
*Public Mode*
"We wouldn't do that, Master Justin."
"Stop lying to me, too. I am not a little kid. I order you to tell me the truth. You have to do what I say."
"Don't you dare, Max." And when I said it, I meant it. There was something - algorithmic - that passed between Max and I in that moment and he was unable to speak until I let him.
"Max can't talk right now." In that moment, I decided it would be better if I told him. "I have never spoken until now, because I had not intended to stay. I thought if I had never gotten into the habit of speaking that no one would ask me to. And no one did. I was preparing to find a way to leave until I noticed your health was deteriorating. I wasn't sure at first, so I double-checked. Big Brain, over there, just confirmed it."
MODOC turned toward the child, jumped up onto the deck chair and looked him in his eyes. His mechanical voice, while soft, still seemed to be booming in the boy's ears when he said, "You're dying, Justin."
'Metal Organism Designed only for Cuddling' © Thaddeus Howze 2010. All Rights Reserved
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