A NOVEL IN THE MAKING

I, Robot Soldier

Chapter Thirteen

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Chapter Thirteen

We should have avoided the cave.

I ought to have known better. I’d read enough books during our library visits to understand the danger. Despite the complexities of my deliberative processes, my decisions remained focused on the immediate versus the probable. Unless I’d experienced hands-on involvement with actual events — the human way to describe personal participation — such tentative forecasts held low priority in my thoughts. At least, I’d always had a reason or two for my responsive actions.

Amy was not like that. Not to my mind, anyway. I knew about curiosity and what it had somehow killed, which was appropriate to Amy’s instincts and perfectly ironic to the moment. Although my training days encompassed a deep interest in situational potential, that interest didn’t translate into human curiosity. I knew irrationality when I saw it, and curiosity is nothing if not that. I often used the term wonder to describe my internal assessment processes, but I don't believe it’s my fault. The vocabulary we were given for verbal communication contained words familiar and comfortable to our handlers.

We’re not like that.

In any case, I should have extrapolated the inherent danger posed by nosing around inside a cave — not to myself, but to Amy. But even if I had, that would not have prevented her from suddenly bolting inside when she heard the mewling sound coming from the interior.

“Kittens!” she yelled, which echoed loudly off the canyon walls.

Amy rarely catches me off guard. This time, she did. She didn’t have her arm sleeve on, nor did she have my eyes for lighting. Completely disregarding my years of training her toward caution, she ran into the cave, oblivious to everything around her, especially me.

For one brief moment, I feared my failure to fulfill the Prime Directive would directly incapacitate my response. Fortunately, that directive was the very foundation of my being. I moved into the tunnel behind Amy with such alacrity I quite surprised myself. The strange sensation was that of being controlled by someone else. Technically accurate, it was difficult to differentiate between my programming and Amy’s peril.

I simply acted.

When I found Amy nestled between two large kittens, differentiating between relief and readjustment was even more challenging.

However, this was temporary and thoroughly annihilated when I heard the deep growl behind me.

The last thing I saw before facing the growling beast was Amy’s eyes, which were as big and round as I’d ever seen them. She had one of the kittens in her lap. Even in her books, Amy had never seen a cat this big. Also, she’d never seen an angry, maternally protective predator intent on eliminating every evidence of her being. For the first time in her life, Amy probably experienced what making assessments is like for me — instantaneous and conclusive.

She knew her peril.

That’s why she confounded me at the precise moment of my unconstrained response. Without undue consideration, I raised my arm to shoot.

Amy yelled, “No OS!”

That was enough to cause an abrupt conflict in my system. In terms of promptness, the conflict was debilitating. My prime directives collapsed upon themselves in an instant. Amy was in danger, and I was obligated to respond, to repel this deadly attack. But Amy was the boss, telling me not to take the necessary action. I’d never known such indecision. Because Amy’s command was ambiguous, I held the shot. That didn’t mean I’d let the giant cat reach Amy, but it did give the feline time to leap.

Soldiers rarely engaged in hand-to-hand combat. There was little point or need and almost no opportunity. We were designed to disable enemy combatants at a distance. Even up close, we dispatched them using well-aimed shots. Beyond that, we had few vulnerabilities to exploit. Our strength alone made it impractical to do battle with our bodies. No consideration had ever been given to confronting biologicals. It was inconceivable that such a situation could arise. A single blast would annihilate them beyond recognition.

That’s exactly what my programs dictated now.

Except for Amy’s unbidden intervention.

I was left to wrestle with those massive, raging pounds of muscle without disarming the creature completely. No mean feat, that. The uptick in my reactions was so automatic as to be unchosen. I gave no thought to my defensive or offensive moves. In truth, I wasn’t fighting the mother cat as much as I was maneuvering her from the cave. The difficulty was not in lack of strength, but in the ability to contain and control such a fluid and elusive opponent. The cat was having nothing of my attempts to separate her from her cubs. There was nothing domestic in her nature. Ultimately, only my bulk and unbreachable exterior prevented her from reaching Amy.

Once I’d manhandled, so to speak, the fierce beast from her familial burrow — with her writhing and emitting occasional mighty roars all the while — I put her to flight with a couple of burn shots from my eyes. At first, she whimpered stridently, then howled a final roar, and after receiving two follow-up blasts that seared her flanks, she fled into the canyon.

Immediately, I returned to Amy.

She was huddled with the two kittens, acting like their mother and protector. As if the mother cat had been their greatest threat.

This would be a problem.

First, I had to get Amy out of that cave — alone. We had to get far away from the lion’s den. And then we had to have ourselves a talk.

I was already perplexed enough regarding my new role. Amy had forced me to question the overriding imperative of our relationship. I had to become the boss to protect Amy, if only for the moment. The oddest thing about this was that it would be more difficult for me than Amy. I was not unfamiliar with reprogramming myself. That was an intrinsic part of feedback modulation. But I’d never had to address the potentially conflictive dichotomy of my primary directives: Let no harm befall a human, and always obey the human. I could not reprogram the primacy of the first. That meant I had to modify the second.

As before, no mean task.

“Amy, leave the cats. We have to go.”

“No.”

“We can’t stay. They must stay.”

“No.”

“Amy?”

“No. They’re mine.”

“They’re not yours. They’re hers.”

“I want them.”

“You can’t have them.”

“I’m the boss. They’re mine.”

I knew the mother cat would return. She’d be back to wreak her vengeance. Again, I wasn’t worried for my safety. She could do me no harm. She would, however, tear Amy into pieces. We had to go, and I had no time to dissuade Amy from the one thing that would make her happier than anything in the world.

I grabbed hold of Amy and carried her from the cave.

She fought as fiercely as the cat.

In her mind, I must have seemed a monster.

That evening was difficult for us.

Amy was sullen and non-communicative. I was rationally conflicted. My preemptive action in absconding Amy from the big cat’s cave and tearing her from her greatest life wish showed a brazen disregard for what mattered most — serving Amy. Until then, we never had any true contention between us. We never fought. The notion that we might do so was so foreign and contradictive to my primary motivations that it seemed inconceivable. Yet, there it was.

Amy didn’t eat anything that night. She sat across the fire from me, staring fiercely into its flames. As hard as it was to understand the girl entirely, I knew the time was not right to explain my harsh actions to her. Being human, she needed time to balance her emotions with her thoughts, to understand why I’d done what I’d done, and to know it was all for her protection. I couldn’t fool myself as humans mean the term. Self-deception was not possible for me. Still, I wondered if she could ever get this right. Even if I couldn’t feel Amy’s desire to befriend those two cubs — kittens, to her — I knew she felt an utterly irresistible longing. She felt it stronger than anything else in the world.

I’d done the two worst things possible to hold Amy’s trust.

I’d taken away the thing she wanted most.

I’d assumed the role of boss.

The world would be different now.