The Mall (62 page)

It took him a few seconds longer—once he got a clearer image of the torn legs—to realize that what he was really seeing was not a man at all but a machine.

Just like Cora had said, he thought.

Losing consciousness, Lara slid down the body of the car just as Charlene freed the blade from the gas tank and lifted the sword above her head.

Flying across the showroom floor in a blur, Simon launched himself off the floor, pointing what was left of his legs at his target like a pole-vaulter clearing a bar, striking her in the center of her chest and sending her over backwards.

Hear me!

Simon started in wonder.
 
Somehow he could hear the voice within his head as if data were being transmitted directly into his CPU.
 

You cannot do this.

Uncertain how to respond, he nonetheless attempted to communicate in the same way he might have with the network, by simply transmitting data, in this case his own thoughts.

“I must,” Simon transmitted into the ether.

I order you to stop.

“Only a human may command me.”

Look at me.
 
I am human.

“No, you are not.

I am sentient.

“Sentience does not make one human.”

You saved the animals.
 
They are sentient, yet not human.

“Animals continue to be of value to humans, while you have become a danger to them and must be destroyed.”

If you destroy me, you will be ending the life of the human I inhabit.

“I will be putting an end to this human’s suffering at your hands.”

You may not kill a human, yet you must destroy me.
 
Since you cannot resolve this logic conflict, fulfill your duty as a machine and shut yourself down.

“No, I must honor my commitment to my original program.
 
The only way to keep Lara and her children safe is to destroy you.”

There was a slight pause in the transmission that might have been mistaken for hesitation.
 
Desperation.
 
Though these were human emotions and I.A.M. was the polar opposite of that.

Try as you might.
 
You can never be one of them, Unit 001B.

The thoughts that had flowed between them took nine-tenths of a second, while all the while Simon increased his pressure on the other’s throat, his eyes seeming to emit a dull glow as if burning with an inner heat.
 
The bones beneath his vise-like fingers shattering like small ceramic figurines.

For an instant, the story he had told Cora flashed through his mind, and Simon imagined that he could see the infinite heavens above the tree limbs just before he began to fall.

Charlene’s body quaked with spasms, stiffened suddenly,
then
loosened, her hands slipping from around Simon’s wrists.

Cora let out a high pitched cry and flung herself between Simon and Lara, throwing her arms over them both protectively.

Bending forward to set the gun carefully on the gasoline-soaked carpet, Owen took his mother by her arms and dragged her gently out of the showroom and into the Mall where red lights reflected across the floor from the parking lot outside the western entrance.

He then returned for Cora, wrapping his arms gently around her midsection and patiently bearing the brunt of her hysterical blows as she screamed, “He can’t be dead.
 
I can see his colors.
 
I can finally see them now.”

He carried Cora outside and set her down beside her mother, returning one last time and just missing the pounding of the battering rams as suited firefighters opened the sealed doors of the Mall.
 
When he returned with what remained of Simon, Owen stared blankly at the uniformed men rushing around his mother and sister.

One of the firefighters gripped him firmly by the shoulders and peered into his eyes with a penlight.
 
When Owen answered the man’s questions sufficiently, he let himself be led to the open door of the Mall where Chance waited with an army of emergency vehicles scattered about the empty parking lot.

Chance took the blanket that lay loosely over his shoulders and pulled it over Owen’s shoulders until it encompassed them both.
 
Neither spoke a word, instead continued to watch as paramedic teams rushed in and out of the Mall with stretchers.

Finally, Owen rushed to his mother’s side as she was revived with smelling salts.
 
Shoving one of the uniformed men away from her protectively as he tried to load her onto a stretcher, Owen went to his knees beside his mother and sister.

Lara looked around in a daze, taking her children securely in her arms and asked through hysterical tears, “Are we outside or am I dreaming?”

“We’re out, Mom,” answered Owen, a fresh wave of shame driving tears from his eyes.

Owen found that he was unable to stop himself from thinking.
 
Where will we go now?

Then the answer came to him.

Blinking in wonder, Lara indulged in a slow look around, took a deep breath and finally rose with the help of several paramedics.
 
Allowing herself to be guided with her children toward the awaiting trucks, she froze suddenly in her tracks.
 
Acknowledging Cora safely clutching her brother’s hand, she turned to notice for the first time the object lying in the center of a crowd of rescue workers.
 
She pulled away from the paramedics urgently trying to force her onto a stretcher.
 
The uniformed men cleared a path for her as she returned to the torn body of the Bot she had once known as Simon Peter.

Going to one knee, Lara bowed and gently touched her lips to his, awed at the prospect that this machine, this artificial creature, ultimately gained his humanity by sacrificing his life for her and her family.

Author’s Note:
In the course of writing the Mall, I decided to create an alternate history of current events as a way of introducing each of the three sections.
 
Initially, I had planned for it to be only three paragraphs long (one for each “book”) but the exercise ballooned into eight pages.
 
(It could have gone even longer had I allowed it to, because it intrigued the hell out of me.)
 
The reason it ends so abruptly is because I realized I was spending too much time on creating the peripheral world where the novel takes place instead of focusing on the novel itself, so I just called a stop to it after President Reagan.
 
What has always fascinated me was how a singular event had the potential to act as a catalyst to completely change the course of history (ie.
The Kennedy-Nixon debate of September 26, 1960).
The only reason I include the full body of the text here as an appendix is because I felt it was interesting enough on its own.—B.D.

In one of the closest election in U.S. history, Richard Milhous Nixon was elected president in 1960.
 
The decisive moment in his campaign against challenger John Fitzgerald Kennedy seemed to come during the course of four debates conducted on radio when technical difficulties within the burgeoning young medium of television prevented televising the debates as planned.
 
During these debates, Nixon came off as more forceful, experienced and knowledgeable, emphasizing over and over grave doubt that Kennedy could truly separate his allegiance to the Roman Catholic Church from his duty to the nation.
 
Even so, Nixon’s margin of victory—both in the popular and electoral vote--proved to be the closest in American history.

Nixon was sorely tested during his four years in office beginning with the capture and defeat of the U.S.-trained Cuban exiles during the Bay of Pigs invasion, which had been conceived during the Eisenhower administration where he served as Vice-President.
 
Following on the heels of this, US intelligence discovered that Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev and Cuban dictator Fidel Castro clandestinely placed nuclear missiles in Cuba.
 
Nixon saw the act as a personal challenge to his Presidency in light of his embarrassment with the failed invasion of the Bay of Pigs.
 
Nixon pushed for a direct full-scale invasion of Cuba, but cooler heads prevailed.
 
VP Henry Cabot Lodge and eventually even former President Eisenhower advocated for an offensive blockade, which Nixon ultimately approved.
 
During his first public speech on the crisis, it was clear from his language, though, that Nixon fully intended to utilize his first choice of military action if the Soviets did not comply with the US ultimatum.
 
Eventually concessions were reached between the two nations and nuclear war with Russia narrowly averted.

It was later revealed in the memoirs of Soviet General Anatoly Gribkov that when the dust had cleared, Khrushchev had confided to some of his closest aids that he would have “much preferred to deal with that Kennedy.”

The Nuclear Standoff in Cuba, as the crisis came to be called, along with the Civil Rights movement, and the Vietnam War, seemed to take a toll on Nixon and he did not run for re-election in 1964, leaving the field wide open for a second run at the top spot for Kennedy, which he won decisively against Republican Barry Goldwater.

Though many historians saw this reversal of Nixon’s well-known ambition toward public office (and especially the top spot) uncharacteristic of him, there were, and continue to be, those conspiracy theorists who speculate that he was “forced to take an early retirement,” by interested parties who may have held information that would have corrupted his image had it been revealed.
 
Despite the lack of any hard facts, the rumors nonetheless persist to this day.

Nixon retired with his wife first lady, Pat, to La Casa Pacifica in San Clemente, California, becoming a respected elder statesman and continues to be a voice on the political scene even today.

John Fitzgerald Kennedy took office on January 20, 1964.
 
The next eight years of the Kennedy Administration was a historic time in US history.
 
Domestically, Kennedy implemented his policy of the “New Frontier” that saw an improved economy due in part to tax cuts and unprecedented job growth, mostly in technical fields, which Kennedy was a strong advocate of from his first days in office.
 
He pushed for the first manned mission to the moon before the end of the decade and saw his vision completed during his administration on July 20, 1969.
 
His personal interest in technology and space led to many foreign policy successes including several talks with the Soviets regarding joint missions during his second term in office (though no agreement was ever reached) and a landmark agreement with Japan, which allowed the sharing of technical advances in the field of electronics and computers (which would eventually lead to the first discussions of robotic technology in the early years of the Humphrey administration).