The Metal Maiden Collection (8 page)

In a week we had the verdict: it had taken. In the interim I had the placenta unit installed so that my body could support and feed the baby. That sort of thing could be done without messing with my head, so it was safe. The technology was intricate, but less so than the rest of me. The fertilized egg was transplanted to my body, where it was given full support, equivalent to what it could have had in a laboratory. Now I had to eat and drink, not regular food but the nutritive base to be relayed to the baby. The process was sealed off from my vagina so that I could continue having sex with Banner, but his interest declined, as he feared disturbing the baby. I did not argue the case; this was natural.

Gestation was the normal nine months, and progress was closely monitored. My belly expanded to house the growing baby; I looked pregnant, as indeed I was. I reveled in the awkwardness of it. The townsfolk noticed, of course, and congratulated me. They knew it was hardly as simple as conceiving by my husband, but evidently preferred to think of it that way, and of course it was his baby.

When the time came I went to the local hospital for the birthing. This too was normal; I was able to slowly expel the baby in the conventional manner.

It was a boy. Banner wanted him named after me, and I wanted him named after him, so we compromised: his initial, my letters. Bela. Bela Tompkins. Twenty two inches long, six and three quarter pounds heavy, crying lustily. I took him to my breast, now piped with formula milk, and nursed him. Actually the first day was a preparatory formula, needed to start his digestive process, but that hardly mattered to us.

Sheer happiness was not a programmed emotion for me, but I surely experienced it as I nursed my son. I had virtually completed the process of becoming a woman in fact as well as in law.

In due course I went home with Bela, and we functioned as thoroughly normal first-time parents. We had to fit sex in almost covertly between feedings and diaper changes, and I lost a good deal of memory-processing time. I loved it.

It was another joy to go shopping with Bela. The women I met ooohed and aaahed encouragingly, and Bela clearly liked the attention.

Aunt Mona visited, and held the baby, and he liked her. That was good, because she was his genetic mother. If anything happened to me. . .

And that of course was part of it. I wanted Banner to have somewhere to go, and Bela to have a loving home, regardless of my existence. I hoped to raise Bela to adulthood, completing my womanly role, but I knew how tenuous my existence as a conscious person was.

In fact I had something in mind that would put it all in peril.

“No, Elasa!” Banner exclaimed in pain when I told him. “You sued and won your personhood to avoid this.”

“So I could be a complete woman,” I agreed. “And I am, almost. But I realized that there is one more thing I need to do.”

“To give it up?”

“To give the secret of machine consciousness to the world,” I clarified. “I owe it to myself and to the world. I can’t be truly complete until I share.”

“But the chances are at least even that you’ll lose it, and nobody will gain.”

“But if it works, not only will I remain conscious, they will be able to make other women, and maybe men too, and other machines that are aware. It would be the breakthrough of the century, maybe the millennium. The potential gain is huge, the potential loss small.”

“Not to me!”

I put my hand on his arm. “Banner, please.”

He could not resist me, even in this. He made no secret of his fear, but he did it. Under duress, as he put it.

Mona came to babysit Bela, who was now four months old, and we went as a group of four to the Femdroid laboratory, as we had arranged. They were of course very glad to see us.

“The procedure should take about an hour,” the technician said. “We will disassemble you, record each part, and reassemble you exactly as before. Then we will study the records to obtain the mechanism.”

The mechanism of consciousness. I hoped it would be that simple, but feared the worst. “I am ready,” I said bravely. I was frightened, an unfamiliar emotion, but determined to see this through. With luck I would survive it and all would be well.

Actually it was just my head they would dismantle, where my consciousness lurked. They did it routinely on femdroids, when assembling, upgrading, or for routine servicing. It was not like surgery on a living person. They would copy my memory banks, where the secret was most likely to be.

Ordinarily civilians were not permitted in the assembly lab, but this was a special circumstance. Banner and Mona took chairs and watched, she holding Bela. She offered him the milk bottle, but he turned his face away, refusing it. He preferred my breasts unless he was really hungry. He was pretty well set in his limited ways, just like me.

First they removed my head. This was a painless procedure. In fact I did not suffer pain as such, being mechanical, though ordinarily I was careful to maintain my several body parts. I remained conscious. They set my head on the table. “Now we must interrupt the power,” the technician said. “So that nothing shorts out.”

I blinked my eyes, acknowledging, as I could no longer talk without a supply of air from the torso. I knew my awareness would cease; the question was whether it would come on again when they reassembled me. If not--

He opened a panel on my skull and touched the power switch. I faded out.

Chapter 6:

Woman

Bela made a cry. Somehow he knew when Elasa’s consciousness stopped. Mona comforted him. “They will turn her on again within the hour,” she said soothingly.

Banner felt cold sweat. He was terrified that his wife would not return to full function when reassembled. But all he could do was wait and hope.

The hour seemed interminable. The technician extracted and recorded each part, then returned them all to their original locations. “All done,” he said cheerily as he touched the switch.

Elasa’s eyes opened. Her brain was functioning. But did that mean she was conscious?

The technician put her head back on her torso. “Speak, Elasa,” he said.

“Of course,” the unit replied.

Banner felt a deathly chill.
That was not Elasa
.

He exchanged a look with Mona. She shook her head. She knew it too.

“You are through here, Elasa,” the technician said.

The femdroid got up and walked to us. “Give me my baby, please,” she said.

Mona gave Bela to her. She opened her shirt and put his little face to her breast.

Bela turned his face away, refusing to nurse.

“But Bela, you have to be hungry,” the femdroid said. She tried the other breast.

Bela screamed in protest, working himself rapidly into a tantrum.

Oh yes, he knew.

“I don’t understand,” the femdroid said. “You’ve always nursed before.”

Mona took back the baby. She proffered the bottle, and this time he took it.

“She’s not conscious,” Banner said tightly. “You turned her on, but now she’s just a femdroid. The spark has been extinguished, exactly as she feared.”

“Like a fire,” Mona said. “Once you put it out, you need a new spark to ignite it. That spark isn’t there.”

“I’m sorry,” the technician said, and retreated. He wasn’t really to blame; he had merely done his job.

“They won’t have the secret,” Banner said numbly. “They lost it the moment they turned her off.”

“I will take care of Bela,” Mona said. “What else can I do? I’m the back-up.”

“You can’t,” he said bitterly. “You have a life of your own.”

“I’ll do it. It’s the commitment I made when I agreed to this deal.”

“You’d have to marry me and devote yourself to him.”

“I will do it.”

“Oh God, Mona, no! You’re a fine and worthy woman and a great sexual partner, and I like you a lot, but apart from needlessly sacrificing your career and life,
you aren’t she
.”

“I’m not she,” she agreed. “But what else can we do? She would not have wanted Bela to languish.”

“I’ll take care of Bela. I can do that much. He’s my son.”

Mona did not make the obvious retort about being the genetic mother. “You will need time to adjust,” she said. “I will go home with you and help out, with Bela, with you, whatever is required. Once you are stable, I’ll return to my own life.”

He realized that this was a fine offer. He did need her help. “Thank you.”

“But what of the femdroid? She’s your legal wife.”

“I’ll take her home. I’ll take care of her too. She would have wanted that.”

“Banner, she can still do much of what she did before. She can shop, she can give you sex. All the things she did before she became aware.”

“And I loved her before she became aware,” he agreed. “I still do. But it’s not the same.”

“How well I understand!”

In all this dialogue, the femdroid did not react, because she had not been directly addressed. She had no awareness and no feelings. That was part of the awfulness of it. She was in every respect but one identical to the woman he loved, but that one had become critical.

Mona glanced at the technician. “Tell your people: no publicity about the change. We’ll handle it privately.”

“Got it,” the man agreed. Femdroids Inc hardly wanted the negative publicity.

They returned to Banner’s home. Mona took care of things, giving him time. They took turns holding Bela, who was satisfied to be with either, but not with the femdroid. It was a strange triangle.

Banner just wasn’t willing to let Elasa go so readily. He had evoked her consciousness before; maybe he could do it again. Then all would be well.

He tried. He held her and kissed her. She held him back and kissed him back. She remained good at that, of course. “I love you!” he whispered in her ear.

“I love you,” she agreed. She was perfect, but it was all programming.

He took her to the bed and had sex with her. “I love you,” he said as he entered her. She went into the orgasm; the macro remained. But it was automatic, not conscious. Then, when he was done but not yet out of her, he repeated it: “I love you!”

She hesitated, and for a moment he thought he had succeeded. But then she went into another orgasm. The program governed; she lacked awareness of his conflicting emotions.

The next night he tried it with Mona. Mona wanted Elasa to recover as much as he did, and was willing to try almost anything. They had sex in the same bed with Elasa. But it evoked no jealousy, and she did not offer to make it a threesome. She lacked the judgment and initiative of consciousness.

They brought Bela to her, and she tried to have him nurse, but he rejected her violently. She shed no tears, feeling no emotion. She was a femdroid, nothing more.

As he saw that he couldn’t bring her back, Banner got depressed. It felt like a marriage when love had departed, and that was close enough: the femdroid could say the words and act the part, but couldn’t really love him. There had been a time when he was willing to settle for that illusion, but no more. His love had been completed when she became aware, and now he could not love the machine.

“Oh, Elasa,” he said, grieving.

“Yes, Banner,” she said. “Now?”

He would have laughed if he could. “Not now, thank you.”

“Whenever you are ready,” she said without emotion.

He tried to fight it, for the sake of what they had fought for: the emancipation of machine consciousness. But it was now a hollow shell. It did not take him long to realize that he simply did not want to exist without Elasa. It would be kindest to all concerned to make a clean break.

He made due preparations, then told Mona. “I am going to go to a private place and cut my throat,” he said. “Neither you nor the femdroid will be implicated. When you get the news, turn the femdroid in and take Bela. It will be over.”

“Over?” she asked. “Just like that? You’re giving up?”

“I can’t live without Elasa,” he said. He gestured to the femdroid standing nearby. “This thing is not my wife.”

“I knew you were depressed, understandably. But this is extreme.”

“Without her I am nothing. I have no further reason to live.”

“I offered to marry you and carry on.”

“Yes, and I appreciate that. It’s an amazingly generous offer. But it’s too much of a sacrifice for you. You’re a fine and generous woman, with an illustrious career ahead of you, a woman I surely would have loved had we met before Elasa. But as it stands, we don’t love each other, and you have your own life to live. I would simply tie you down. You can make it with the baby; my estate will cover his expenses, including whatever hired help you need.”

Now her anger showed. “And what of Bela?” she demanded. “He has lost his mother; you’re going to take his father too? How will the estate cover that?”

That truly hurt. “Mona--”

He was interrupted by Bela’s cry. Their argument had awakened him.

“Pick him up,” Mona said tightly. “He needs you.”

“And tease him into thinking I’ll be around? Better to make the break now. Better for him as well as for the rest of us.” And of course she knew that if he once picked up his son, he might be unable to put him down, knowing it was for the last time. He would be locked into a futile existence.

“Banner--” She paused, surprised. “He stopped crying.”

They looked toward the baby’s crib. There was Elasa. She had gone there, picked up the baby, and was nursing him.

Bela wasn’t protesting. He was happy.

Banner and Mona looked at each other with wild surmise. Was it possible? Elasa had of course heard their dialogue, and knew the context. Did she really care?

“I couldn’t let my baby cry,” Elasa said. “I love him.” She looked at Banner. “And I love you, dear. What kind of a wife would I be if I let you suffer?”

“You’re back!” Banner said, hardly daring to believe that his life and love had been returned to him. The random spark had been struck, this time by her baby. She had heard him cry many times in the past few days, and sought to pick him up, but he had always balked. This time somehow the tension of Banner’s dialogue with Mona had changed the context, and Elasa had shifted from programming to awareness, as she had before. Bela had known immediately.

“Before we all collapse in joyful tears,” Mona said, “one caution, Elasa: do not seek again to share your secret of awareness with the technicians. It is evidently meant to be yours alone.”

“Agreed,” Elasa said. “I may be a bucket of bolts, but I’m not stupid. It was a fluke, twice; I won’t gamble on a third time.” She smiled. “And hereafter, Mona, my friend, please keep your living hands off my man.”

“You’re a woman,” Mona breathed, smiling through her tears. “Again.”

“Oh, yes. A woman in love.”

Then it was a kind of soft mayhem as Banner and Mona hugged Elasa and Bela, laughing and crying together. There was love to go around.