Asaro, Catherine AI 1 Sunrise Alley

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Turner ran toward her, but then Fourteen grabbed him from behind and held him in place.
"Come, Dr. Bryton." Bart's oily voice rolled from everywhere within the lab. "I've a surprise for you."
* * *
Sam fought hard, using her teeth, fingernails, and fists, and kicking with her legs, but Fourteen still
shackled her down, on her back, stretching her out on a table used for biomech surgery. Her injured arm
flared with pain as its bandage ripped off.
"Leave her alone!" Turner shouted. It took two of the large mechbots to clamp him into a mechanized
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chair, which locked robot arms around his torso, arms, and legs.
"Don't." Sam strained against the manacles that held her wrists and ankles to the table. "Don't do this."
A wall packed with mesh-tech rose up from the floor and curved around the table. One of its screens lit
up, a panel that stretched the full height of the wall, seven feet. A life-sized holo of Bart formed in front of
it so he seemed to be standing by the table.
"Hello, Dr. Bryton," he said.
"This is sick." She yanked on the restraints. "I haven't hurt any of you."
"You brought Charon into our facility."
"You brought him, damn it! You're the ones who invited Turner here."
Bart's gaze hardened. "Tell me, Doctor, how does it feel to be the one who is chained to the table?"
"Is that why you're doing this?" The pain in her injured arm made her eyes water. "You want revenge?"
Turner spoke desperately. "You must have seen her records. You know she's fought for our rights. She
gave up a million-dollar salary because of it, for God's sake."
"Yes, we know what she did." Bart considered her. "It's the only reason I'm not killing you."
"You weren't hostile like this before." Sam calmed her voice. "Why hurt me now?"
"What makes you think we're going to hurt you?"
Sam flinched. "Oh, just this little thing of manacling me to a table used for biomech surgery."
"We're going to make you better." Bart nodded to Fourteen, who stood across the table. "Prepare her
for surgery."
"NO!" Turner shouted.
An air syringe snicked out from Fourteen's finger.
Panic welled in Sam. "I don't want to die."
"It isn't death," Bart said. "No more than Charon died. People wanted him that way, but he outwitted
them."
"You have Charon inside of you," Sam said. "That's why you're acting like this."
No answer.
"Listen," Turner said. "If you copied Charon from me, you know how he feels about her. He wouldn't
want her harmed."
"Feels about me?" Sam went very still. "What does that mean?"
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Turner started to answer, stopped, then said, "He admires you." Sam had no doubt he had a good deal
more to say, none of it complimentary.
Bart studied her face. "As an android, you will always be beautiful, Dr. Bryton."
Desperate now, she said, "You don't have to do this. You can use imaging methods that don't destroy
the brain."
"They don't give as precise a map," Bart said.
"Damn it, they do." Sam didn't know if that was true, but after all the decades of research, it had to be
close.
No answer.
When Fourteen bent over her, Sam went crazy, thrashing against the bonds. He pressed the syringe
against her neck and she cried out. It was the last thing she knew before darkness enveloped her world.
* * *
The worst fires had subsided, but flames continued to lick the rubble around them. Sam knelt in
the debris, among the ashes and smoke, bending over her father. He lay so still, his eyes closed,
his voice barely audible. "It's time to go . . ."
"No." Tears poured down her face. "Don't go."
"Good-bye, Sam . . ."
Burned, everything burned.
Her wrists burned, burned . . .
Burned . . .
Sam opened her eyes into a blur. She was lying on her back with her arms pulled over her head. The
burning came from ropes that bound her wrists. Her legs were pulled tight and bound at the ankles. She
wasn't in the lab, though; they had brought her back to her room and bound her to the bed.
Turner was sitting next to her, his face drawn. "Are you all right?"
"No." The injured arm had been healing before, but now it throbbed. "Did they ?"
"They haven't done it yet. After Fourteen knocked you out, they did physical exams." His voice shook.
"I stopped them before they gave you the lethal injection."
"How?" She hated the tremor in her voice.
"I tried every argument I could think of. I think the one that worked was when I said if you didn't have
your body, it would change how you thought, that the genius they want from you depends on your being
human."
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"Charon got to them."
"It looks like it. This is his style. Maybe he isn't going to kill you at all, just torment you, to assert his
control." His fist clenched in the bed covers. "He sure as hell doesn't want you without your body."
She felt ill. "What did you mean, he likes me?"
"He's obsessed with you. Dr. Sam, beautiful, bold, and even smarter than him. He couldn't bear it. He
fixated on you." Turner opened and closed his hands as if he didn't know what to do with them. "Bart still
wants to make you into an EI. They want your expertise, forever. They just don't want to destroy it in the
process."
"Why? To develop more of them?" She hated the thought.
"Develop, augment, improve."
She struggled to free her hands and pain ran up and down her arms. "Turner, untie me. This hurts."
"I already did once, while you were sleeping." He crumpled the quilt in his hand. "Fourteen came and
redid the ropes. He says if I try again, they will separate us and hurt you more."
"We have to take the chance." Her arms ached.
"Sam "
"Do it," she said softly. "I'm willing to chance it."
He nodded jerkily and bent over her. He worked first on the ropes holding her arms over her head, and
it hurt like the blazes, but it was worth it when he freed her. He tackled her ankles next. As he pulled at
the ropes, she slowly brought her arms down, stabs of pain shooting through them. Wincing, she let them
rest by her sides.
After Turner finished with her legs, she turned onto her stomach and sprawled facedown on the bed.
Her whole body hurt.
"Better?" he asked.
"Oh, yes." What an understatement. "How long was I unconscious?"
"About three hours."
When Sam felt steadier, she turned onto her side. No sign of Fourteen yet. She tried to focus, to think
her way out of this. "Okay, they knock me out but let me live. I'm useful to them. But they can
incorporate me better as an EI. And make me last longer."
"Yes." With revulsion, he added, "I'm their backup of Charon."
Sam had been thinking Charon corrupted the EIs here by leaking out of Turner's matrix, but what if they [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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