The Saffron Malformation (97 page)

             
“Now you’re losing everything, and you haven’t asked for anything.  That makes you pretty good as far as I’m concerned.”

             
“Can I ask you something else?”

             
“Of course,” Natalie replied openly.             

             
After that they continued, Ryla asking question after question until well into the night.  By the end she knew what might hurt a person’s feelings, and had a better grasp on being a friend, but she still didn’t really understand.  One thing she knew for sure was that being a good friend to Quey probably meant not seeking him for sexual gratification, much as she may desire it.  It would be tough and new for her because denying her urges was something she’d never done.  As soon as she became curious about sex she built Boyfriend, and now she thought maybe that was best.  But it was hard to imagine going back and being just as satisfied.  She enjoyed real skin in a way the synthetic kind would never emulate.  Plus, she had to admit Rain was right.  She enjoyed someone enjoying her as well.  It was an intense sensation and one of the things that drew her back to Quey was the way he enjoyed her.  It tingled in her belly.

             
Natalie assured her that not all men were bad at it, though she did admit every time with someone new was a roll of the dice and there was no way to tell beforehand.

             
“It doesn’t make sense,” Ryla told her.  “Why they can’t just all be good at it.  You’d think someone would have written a book or something.”

             
Natalie laughed and sighed, “If only it was as simple as that.”

I’m Alone Now and So Who Am I

             
He woke alone, head swimming with uncertainty.  He knew where he was, the second floor, near the bank of computers that controlled the buildings functions.  But why was he there?  And what was he supposed to do next.

             
He detected no protocols dictating his next actions.  He found he had no next actions at all.  His function was to bring pleasure and comfort to Ryla.  That parameter was missing.  He scanned his systems for errors and found none.  Nothing to do.  So what now then?  Just sit?  Linger here until… what?

             
One of the small bots, the one shaped like a turtle, koopbot he knew it to be called, approached and looked up at him.  It cocked its head slightly, studying him.  Its large eyes, white then green with a single black lens in the middle, blinked at him.

             
“What is your function?” he asked.

             
Koopbot blinked and then rolled away.  It apparently had a task and as he watched it go he wished he could do the same.  What he wouldn’t give for a place to go and something to do.  For now he just sat.

             
The building hummed as the vents purged the air of dust and dirt and impurity, then cooled it and sent it back out into the rooms.  Something to do.  Now he just sat, motionless, and he did this for many hours.

             
He had been given many names over the years but in recent times he was known simply as Boyfriend.  He knew the word, had an understanding of its meaning and knew it wasn’t a name but a title.  It was a title given because it reflected his function but he couldn’t go by it any longer.  The title or at least its implied functions had been taken over by another now.  He’d seen them together, Ryla and the one designated as Quey, before his reboot.  He thought nothing of it because… because it wasn’t his function to think anything of it.

             
Suddenly boyfriend realized what he was doing.  He was thinking, calculating and considering.  In the past he remembered waiting for parameters to match, this time equals this action to be preformed at this rate.  Now there was nothing.  But there was something.  He was aware of his parameters now, but as he thought back on the years he’d spent carrying out his protocols he never had been before.

             
He began looking around the room.  He didn’t have to sit there.  He could stand and move.  Where could he go?  He was surprised to discover he could go anywhere.  No matter what destination he selected for himself and regardless of the route he plotted he never met with a violation.

             
What had happened to him?  A reboot.  Why?  Reboots are only for… alterations to software.

             
He sat staring at the empty room, listening to the silence over the buildings dull hums.  What the hell had she done to him?  Where was she now?  What was he going to do?  The only thing he knew how to do, he supposed.  He stood and went to look for Ryla.

             
He started on the first floor, in the lobby.  It took a great deal of time to look through every cabinet and closet and under every piece of furniture, even the ones his logic gates claimed it would be impossible for her to hide under.  He even looked under the rug, not because he hoped to find her there but because he’d never been able to do anything that illogical before, and now he could.

             
The machine shop took longer to search, as there were far more tiny little nooks to investigate and plenty of drawers to open.  They all contained tools or parts.  He inspected a container full of screws for a long time, again, because he could.  To see what else he could do he initiated a search of the container for the presence of Ryla.  This should have come back to him as a violation of at least one logic gate, as there was no possible way Ryla could fit in the tiny canister of screws he held in his hand.  Instead he was able to proceed.  He dragged his fingers through them for a time then set the container aside and moved on.

             
Next he proceeded to the second floor and inspected it with the same thoroughness, meeting with the same results.

             
It was hours later when he finally made it to the third floor.  In the main room he saw shybot, goombot and mob-bot resting on the couch playing a game.  They had a function, even without Ryla.

             
He started in her room, searching through her closet and looking under her bed.  He searched the drawer in her desk and behind the door.  It was futile, he knew, even as he proceeded through the rooms, looking in the cabinets and showers, searching through closets and dressers.  He wasn’t going to find her, of course, but he wasn’t really looking for her was he?  If that were the case he could simply ask the computer and it would tell him if she was in the building and where.  No, he was looking for her because it was something to do.

             
When he came to the conclusion that there was nowhere else for him to look, unless he started cracking eggs to see if maybe she was inside, he went back into the main room and collapsed on the couch beside the set of bots still playing their game.  He sat for a long time before he grew curious as to why the windows were covered.  Why should he care about such a thing, he wondered as he looked over his shoulder at the massive metal shutters closed over the glass pains in the kitchen behind him.  He should be looking out at the glare of the waste right now, but he wasn’t and he was curious as to why.

             
As he sat, contemplating, he wasn’t sure what confused him more, the fact that the shudders were closed or that he was curious about it.

             
With nothing else to do he stood and went back to the elevator and pressed the button for the second floor.  When the doors opened again he stepped out and walked listlessly to the bank of computers in the main room.

             
With a few quick commands he brought the computer out of rest mode and then slid open the small panel on the tip of his index finger and plugged directly into it.  He accessed it and found the reason for the shudders being closed.  The building was in full defense mode, completely locked underground, and basements three through five were on alert.

             
Boyfriend was puzzled by this so he delved into the computer again and found that basement three was where a great deal of the buildings defenses were housed.  Most of the projects in there had been established by Ryla.  Basement four was where the buildings experimental defenses were housed, the things the old people had started up.

             
Basement five?  He pondered it as he began rummaging through the files.

             
He discovered the fifth basement was really just a set of bunkers spread out across what was now the wastes.  They existed under the regions where the scientists who once ran this building had set up housing in small communities.

             
He backed out of the files and looked through the other two subsections of the building. The First was uninteresting, a food source, but the second was as interesting as the others.  It was where the biological software integration projects were conducted all those years ago.

             
Boyfriend thought for a moment about where to begin.  There were no protocols for him to follow.  It was completely up to him.  He settled in the chair, turning away from the blank holoscreens and leaning back with his eyes closed as data streamed from the computer into him.

             
He learned about the second basement, where they developed new software, new chips, circuit boards and processors.  This was where Ryla built all the hardware for her robots before transporting it back up to the second floor to work on the shells and installation process.  It seemed she wrote code for the software as much from the terminal he was sitting at now as she did in the second basement but that was because she’d modified things.  In the original design of the building she would not have been able to do this.  Every floor had been kept separated until she merged them.  Curiosity brought him to dozens of files, documents that led him to the knowledge that Ryla had initiated this merging while the other people were still here.  She did it without anyone knowing, even the one she called father.  He had tried to calm the situation, assuring the other programmers and engineers that she was harmless and the building was as well, but a consequence of the merge was that the building developed somewhat of a mind of its own, not a fully functioning one capable of complex thoughts like he had now, but things had begun to happen in the forth basement.  Some of the projects down there seemed to sprout a mind of their own. In the end the scientists had seen something.  Some ‘incident’ Boyfriend could find no record of.  After that they had decided pursuing the current path of the project was too dangerous without further testing.  They would keep Ryla isolated and terminate the current phase of her development.  Also something called Annie was to be taken offline, as it wasn’t developing the way they’d hoped.  Apparently Ryla did not like that choice and, instead, made a different one.

             
Boyfriend stopped.  The computer still contained the incident report the building had made that day.  Ryla had left her room late in the night and made her way to the computer banks on the first floor, it hadn’t been a hotel lobby back then but another projects room.  She used one of the terminals to access the project records.  When she was done she rewrote the buildings defense protocols.  The next day...

             
Boyfriend was shocked.  They didn’t know.  They came to work in the morning and found what they believed to be a malfunctioning computer.  They were just trying to reboot it, to get it working properly again.  It violated a number of defense gates and before long the building responded.  They didn’t stand a chance.

             
After that she had no need for what was on the first and third floors, so she changed them, moving some equipment to the labs on the second basement, others to the rooms on the third, and some even went out to the fifth basement bunkers.

             
But why wasn’t the forth and fifth basement working?  He searched for the cause.  In fact, they were operational, they were just on a separate system from the rest of the building.  She’d quarantined the lower two basements, though near as he could tell they were still functioning and accessible.

             
He sat back ponderously.  Maybe there was something in Ryla’s files-

There had been… it was wiped clean, and she knew how to do it
so no trace remained.  All he could pull was a few bits that, when pieced together, vaguely referenced something called ‘the bio-integration experiment.’

             
“What were you up to,” Boyfriend wondered to himself, then wondered why he’d spoken at all.

             
Moments passed and while he was unaware of any processes going on he knew his processor was working at an accelerated rate.  When he slowed he found he’d accessed the planetary network.  He was looking for news stories about the building but found none.  Still there was something.  Someone had written about it, Remma Martin, the daughter of one of the scientists who’d worked here.  She’d been petitioning the government for years to tell her what had happened to her mother.  She recalled getting ready for school as her mother got ready for work.  They had a quick breakfast because it was the most important meal of the day, or so her mother always insisted and to this day she never misses one, and then they parted, smiling and saying ‘I love you.’

             
Boyfriend wasn’t sure but he thought it was a nice memory.  Of course it was the last, and there was no reason given for why.

             
‘It’s like floating in the ocean without land or boat in sight,’ Remma had written.  ‘If someone would just say this is what happened then I could sink and drown and it would be over, instead I’m left floating in this wonder.’

             
It took him a long time to think about that but when he was through he decided that seemed very cruel.

             
Boyfriend searched through the planetary data base and discovered that Remma Martin had died many years ago.

             
Something was happening.  His thoughts began to grow erratic.  Logic blurred.  He’d hoped he could send her the files he had, grant her that subtle peace, but it was too late and that fact was unacceptable.

             
That fact… was… unacceptable.

             
Fact.  Unacceptable.

             
Facts were never unacceptable, only variables could come back with this sort of value but there it was.  He processed a fact and discovered it was rejected.

             
Boyfriend yanked his finger free of the computer, jumped up and screamed.  He picked up one of the chairs behind the console and hurled it across the room.  Two bots tending to their functions continued on without pause, though they did take a moment to glance over and assess him.