The Final Deception – Opening Chapters

1

THE CREATIONIST FUNDAMENTALISTS

IT WAS JULY 2401, and still no sign of life had been found anywhere but on the Earth. The consequences of this fact had serious social, spiritual and political repercussions. The Space Agency was the last outpost of science and technology. She was an island of hope, floating alone in a sea of religious self-righteousness that was creeping up her shores and coming to drown her.

The Space Agency headquarters busied itself out of sight, but unfortunately not out of mind, somewhere far beneath the icy tundra of Greenland, north of the Arctic Circle, in a magnificent subterranean labyrinth of buildings. It was impregnable. It had to be. Times were politically unstable. In fact, that’s an understatement. Wars and civilian deaths were at a historical all-time high. The Creationist Fundamentalists were rapidly expanding their influence and power, their anti-science rhetoric. The whole world was falling in love with their pure religious charm and spiritual homeliness, and it seemed only a matter of time before they would take complete control of it. Only the scientists and the cynics remained impervious to their advances. And they, on their island of hope, were dwindling by the day. It would take something special—something truly incredible—to save them all from drowning.

The labyrinth of buildings of the Space Agency headquarters tended to exude strength and expansiveness. All the rooms and interconnecting corridors were typically outsized and the aeroplane-hangar-sized laboratory of a certain Professor Joseph Patrick Merlin was no exception. Dick Stromberg, the Space Agency president, was making a rare visit …

* * *

Professor Merlin was working alone in his laboratory, tinkering away inside the chest cavity of a female android, which was lying prostrate on a workbench with the aqua-blue collarless jacket of her tunic unzipped. Professor Merlin liked to work in his laboratory facing the main door, even if it seemed miles away at times. He never turned his back on anyone. The workbench, his favourite one, was only ten metres from the main door. Suddenly the main door swished open, revealing Stromberg, a middle-aged portly man, attired in his usual black collarless jacket and loose trousers.

“Dick,” shouted out Professor Merlin, in his typically enthusiastic manner as he paused over the android and smiled at Stromberg. He wondered why Stromberg was visiting the laboratory, because he hadn’t done so for months. Must be something up?

Stromberg weaved his way through some laboratory furniture towards Professor Merlin. “Chrissakes! This place is a regular obstacle course,” said Stromberg as he approached Professor Merlin, who was covering up the all too real nakedness of the android. Stromberg stopped short of the workbench and gave the laboratory the once over … he was shaking his head. “Armies of desks, chairs, tables, cupboards, bookcases, shelving units, workbenches and other crazy furniture, all higgledy-piggledy like a friendly bomb had dispersed them all over the place. How can you work in such a choc-a-block chaotic place?”

Professor Merlin smiled, gesturing for Stromberg to take a rather large and comfortable armchair.

“It might look chaotic, but everything is where I need it. I know where everything is from an experimental positronium-thinking-chip to a box of 2H pencils.” The Professor shifted from his workbench and leapt onto a stool next to Stromberg’s armchair. Professor Merlin’s clothes were his usual mohair forest-green trousers and collarless jacket, matching the design and texture of Stromberg and the android’s. He looked deep into Stromberg’s eyes to seek a clue as to the reason for his visit.

“How can you explain those bunk beds in the corner,” said Stromberg, pointing his finger, “and that massage table over there.” His voice grew incredulous as he pointed out the most unusual of laboratory fittings, “And that trampoline in the middle of the lab!”

“Well, we lab workers work rather long hours when we get hooked on a problem or project, and so we find the bunk beds very useful. The massage table is used before—and after—we play four-a-side football at the back of the lab.” Professor Merlin then began dusting some loose solder off the fuzzy mohair texture of the sleeve of his jacket.

“And the trampoline?”

“Oh, yes. That’s for our latest genius,” said Professor Merlin, smiling.

“Who is?”

“Heidi Fischer.”

“Ah, yes. The five-year-old firebrand,” said Stromberg, and he was smiling now. “We’ve high hopes for her, that’s for sure—as long as we can control her temper.”

“Maybe it’s her temper that makes her so ingenious. Perhaps we should give her the leeway her personality requires. I try to ignore her outbursts, though I have to admit I find them amusing.” The Professor had found Heidi to be a whirlwind of fresh air in the stuffy political atmosphere that often clogs up the Space Agency.

Stromberg thought about it. Then he said, “Well, I can’t see her being the genius that you are.”

“That is your opinion,” said Professor Merlin humbly.

“And everyone else on the planet’s. People believe you to be the greatest mind not only in this labyrinth of buildings, not only in the world, but in the history of the world.”

“Don’t be so silly, you’re embarrassing me.” Professor Merlin felt his cheeks flush and grow itchy.

Stromberg thumped him like a bear playfully cuffing a cub, and added, “And you’re only thirty-three. It’s amazing what you’ve achieved. In fact, you’ve discovered, invented and created so many incredible things, and solved so many seemingly impossible scientific and technological problems, that many believe you are the magician Merlin himself.”

“That’s their ignorance. But I suppose people believe in more ridiculous things these days …”

“Yeah, they sure do—the Creationist Fundamentalist doctrine. And those creationist extremists believe you’re Merlin, for sure. They literally believe you’re in league with the Devil.”

“Maybe I am,” said Professor Merlin. “But I don’t think magicians are born in nondescript villages in the English countryside.”

“Nope, that’s precisely where they’re born,” said Stromberg, scoring a point.

“Dick, the only magical power I possess is an uncanny ability to uncover the truth. And my only weapon is logic.”

“Come on, Professor, you know it isn’t that simple.”

Professor Merlin couldn’t read Stromberg’s intentions and was growing impatient and curious to know what he was doing in the lab. He decided he couldn’t put it off another minute. “Well, never mind all that, I presume since you’ve visited my humble abode for the first time in months that you’ve something important to say. What’s on your mind?”

“Hmm … well … you’ve evidently not read the news today?”

“No. I’ve been working on the android … I think I’ve made a significant breakthrough.”

Stromberg looked distant. He was looking down solemnly at his white leather boots. Professor Merlin could see something was wrong and wished he had read the daily global news on his news monitor.

“What is it, Dick?” he asked cautiously.

“America …”

“America?”

“She went down today …” he said, his voice leaking away like the blood of Hope seeping out of Pandora’s Box.

This was a blow everybody had expected but never knew how they would take.

Professor Merlin stood up, walked over to a desk, and kicked the chair from under it. “Damned Creationist Fundamentalists!” He followed his footwork up by slamming his fist down on the desk. Quickly, he quelled his emotions, and then turning around with his back leaning on the desk, he faced Stromberg, and mused, “America … If you’ll excuse the pun, God knows what they’ll do to the Statue of Liberty?”

“Probably change the torch for a crucifix, and call her the Immaculate Conception,” said Stromberg sarcastically.

“And perhaps the spikes will be re-sculptured into a crown of thorns—after all, the seas and continents which the spikes represent are all one now,” said Professor Merlin, then added, “And the tablet will have the date changed from the July 4th, 1776 to December 25th, 0000—that’s their latest freedom date, isn’t it?”

“Hmm … not sure … But there are also those chains of tyranny she is escaping from, which lie at her feet. What will they do to those?”

“Let me see … We’ve now got a gargantuan Mary wearing a crown of thorns holding aloft a crucifix in her right hand with a tablet in her left displaying the date of Christ’s first visit to mother Earth. These chains could be, say, rosary beads reminding us all to say our prayers. People will make the pilgrimage to the Immaculate Conception from all over the world, kneel at her feet, and kiss each bead of the rosary chanting the appropriate prayer.”

“Yeah, Professor, yeah,” enthused a psyched up and riled Stromberg, enjoying the criticism—it was all they had. “And the bronze inscription at the statue’s base would have to have new words … What are those words again?”

Professor Merlin walked to a nearby computer. His fingers punched some keys … Reading the monitor with his back to Stromberg, he said loudly, “The lady of Liberty, Mother of Exiles, basically says:”

 

“Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she

With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor,

Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,

The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.

Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost, to me,

I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”

 

Stromberg said, “I’d like to see them better that.”

“Oh, they will,” said Professor Merlin, returning to his stool. “They will.”

“How they love to desecrate buildings and monuments. The people who built them will be turning in their graves,” said Stromberg angrily.

“Not according to the Creationist Fundamentalists. They’ll be dancing in the glory that their works are deemed worthy of divine conversion.”

“Madness, the lot of it. Why has the world descended to this madness?”

“Perhaps it’s not madness,” said Professor Merlin soberly.

“You’re not serious!” cried a worried Stromberg.

“Nah … just allowing myself to see the other side of the argument. Devil’s advocate. Anyway, let’s face it, it’s happened.”

“Well, what are we gonna do about it? Can’t you set your great mind on that?”

“My mind tells me that we failed to find extra-terrestrial life of any kind whatsoever, and this is the inevitable consequence. So the only solution would be to find it … and quite honestly, that seems unlikely to happen. And I think the boat’s been pushed out too far now, anyway.”

“You mean, even if by some miracle we find evidence of extra-terrestrial life, it’ll be too late to reverse the march of the Creationist Fundamentalists?”

“Well,” said Professor Merlin, “too late for the immediate future. I mean, if extra-terrestrial life were found, I believe it would act as a seed to eventually cause a reverse. They’d try to deny the facts, but facts have a habit of biting back. Let’s face it, that’s exactly what happened in the first place. Yes, we scientists claimed there would be life teeming all over the Universe, and the facts showed the opposite, and the creationists bit back—they damn well bit our hearts out!”

“Professor, you’re saying there’s nothing we can do?”

“Nothing, but carry on doing what we usually do for as long as we can. Which includes seeking extra-terrestrial life.”

“Do you feel we have any chance of finding extra-terrestrial life, given we’ve failed for centuries?” said Stromberg, looking forlorn … defeated.

“I think there’s a chance, definitely. There’s not much point looking in our solar system. We’ve pretty much ruled that out now. But as for outside of the solar system, we’ve searched for Earth-like planets, but instruments have not been able to examine to any worthwhile degree any planets as small as the Earth in Earth-like orbits … Until very recently.”

“You’re talking about your Remote Astronomical Object instrument, the RAO, operating on the Traxis space station.”

“Yes. Pre-RAO instruments have found many stars like the Sun that have planets the mass of Jupiter or bigger. Unfortunately, to find planets the mass of the Earth with precision has hitherto been difficult, even if we can assume its orbit exactly and its position in that orbit. The RAO can detect planets the mass of the Earth reasonably easily. More importantly, it can also determine precisely its composition … I’m sure you’ve read the internal papers on this?”

“Er … um … well, you know how it is,” said Stromberg, fidgeting uncomfortably on his feet. Then he tried to be positive, and said, “I can’t keep up with all your inventions, but I did read the paper on android existentialism. Very interesting it was too.”

“Yes, I’m heavily into my android work at the moment. It’s absolutely fascinating. I mean, could it really happen that one day an android, or a computer, will be made so that it reaches a state of consciousness? The age-old question.”

“Look, never mind that. What about the more pressing concern: how far have you got with your RAO. Have you found anything?”

“Just a minute, Dick. Remember, if an android suddenly became conscious, that would prove a problem for the Creationist Fundamentalists, perhaps an even greater one than finding extra-terrestrial life. Think about it … Would this new sentient being believe in God? Would it have a soul? And so on, and so on, and so on … ad nauseam.”

“Hmm … How likely is this to happen, and how soon?” said Stromberg impatiently, absently rubbing his brow.

“Impossible to tell, and certainly not in my lifetime.”

“Then get back to the RAO for Chrissakes!” thundered Stromberg.

“Erm, I’ve found about thirty planets so far that are the mass of the Earth and on a similar orbit sailing around a similar sun.”

“What! Why haven’t you released this information?”

“Because the composition of all of them implies no life. Those with an atmosphere of any significance are poisonous, and usually greenhoused. Furthermore, we don’t want the creationist extremists to find out what we’re doing. They would go for the Traxis space station for sure. So far, we’ve deceived them into thinking it’s not an important target.”

“I see,” said Stromberg. “Yes, the extremist Creationist Fundamentalists even murder the liberal ones, but I think the extremists will dissipate when we scientists are all gone.”

“Who knows?” said Professor Merlin.

“What do you think of the chances of finding any planet with telltale signs of life?”

“If there’s significant life, such as on Earth, the RAO will provide definite evidence, so don’t worry on that score. But I’ve honestly no idea of the probability. We’ve always been wrong in the past, so I don’t like to guess. My gut feeling is that it’s unlikely. But mathematically, looking at the planets and stars I’ve interrogated so far, their distribution of temperatures and atmospheres leads me to conclude it should be possible to find one within fifty years. But that assumes that the Earth is not simply an absolutely incredible fluke in itself.”

“Taking a leaf out of your devil’s advocate book and thinking like a creationist, I suppose if God really did create the Earth for Man the way their doctrine says He did, then He could have made it so only on Earth could that fluke occur. In other words, it’s quite a big fluke. If you know the number of planets in the Universe that are, were, and will ever be, then the Earth’s probability of being the way it is now, is one divided by that total number of planets. Do you agree, Professor?”

“I see what you’re driving at—the Creationist Fundamentalists would love you for it. Let’s just hope logic, for once, rules the day.”

“If only you really were the magician Merlin. He is supposed to have lived his life with Time running backwards and so knew his future. If you were him, you could know if we were going to find any extra-terrestrial life, then we could plan for its revelation.”

“Or know if I’ll make an android conscious,” said Professor Merlin, raising an eyebrow.

“Oh well, I’ve brought you the depressing news … I best be off … got to chair a meeting on the military defence of our remote space projects.” Stromberg lifted himself uneasily out of the comfortable armchair. “Oh yes, by the way, did you achieve that cryogenic hibernation target?”

“Yes. I’ve got the freezing temperature down to less than 0.000001 Kelvin with Helium-4, using adiabatic demagnetisation, and my subatomic vibration technique. Basically, we can freeze living things for significant time periods now, safely. Tested it on rats.”

“Then we’ll be able to freeze astronauts for long hauls in space?”

“In principle, yes. But we need to do a few more tests before we can be sure it will work for long periods of time. In theory, we should soon be able to put people in cryogenic hibernation for over a thousand years.”

“Gosh! Well, sign me up for one of your testing chambers, and maybe in a thousand years these damned Creationist Fundamentalists will have gone.”

With that Stromberg tramped wearily out of the laboratory.

 

2

PROFESSOR MERLIN

PROFESSOR MERLIN WONDERED about the RAO. Maybe it would find something useful, then at least a reverse in Earth’s political fortunes would begin, even if they wouldn’t be much use to him in his life-time—but there again, he could do what Stromberg suggested and put himself and his kind in stasis for a thousand years somewhere safe!

At least Professor Merlin thought he was safe from the creationist extremists in his laboratory. Perhaps if he were his namesake, knowing his future, he would know for certain he was safe. But he was no magician, no wizard. But like his namesake, he knew the power of propaganda and trickery, and he was an excellent liar when he had to be; in this way, he was a magician. It was his exceptional memory that enabled him to lie so well. He had lied about the RAO results to the world press (the last of the cynics). He didn’t want the extremists to target the RAO on the Traxis. In fact, he was so good at lying that no one suspected him of it, except Stromberg, who had taught him its fine art. So you see, he was highly respected by almost everyone for not only his brilliance but also his honesty, despite himself. Of course, he rarely lied. But he knew sometimes you had to, that there are many ways to lie, and that lies have many shades. The purpose of a lie is to deceive.

Professor Merlin saw deception as a fundamental force in much the same way he saw gravity or electro-magnetism. Wherever there is truth, deception is naturally attracted—he knew that much. It was his understanding of deception that helped him uncover so many truths. He once said, “Often if you have a problem, put it under the microscope of logic and seek out deception. When you find this deception, focus the lens beyond it—you’ll expose the truth and solve the problem.”

Professor Merlin drifted back to the workbench and, with his head bowed, went back to tinkering inside the chest cavity of the female android.

Suddenly the main door swished open and into the laboratory skipped a rather tiny girl. It was the five-year-old firebrand—Heidi Fischer. Professor Merlin could almost feel a fresh breeze accompanying her. Even in the periphery of his vision, he knew the girl was dressed in her banana-yellow Space Agency astronaut uniform. He could even sense a red dot on her right shoulder, which he knew to be a circular red badge with the black letters “S A” printed on it. What would the solar-flare bring in today? He liked Heidi, despite her quicksilver, though thankfully ephemeral, temper.

“Aha, if it isn’t little Miss Spacegirl,” boomed Professor Merlin in his typically enthusiastic manner as he paused over the android and beamed at Heidi.

“I’m not Miss Spacegirl,” protested Heidi, “I’m-I’m—” She broke her sentence and looked up as if to the heavens for divine inspiration. Her face crumpled into a ball of concentration. Then finally, after a few seconds, her face relaxed as she lowered it and finished her sentence, “—Miss Fischer.” But she still looked peeved standing there yards from the professor’s workbench, and she added with arms akimbo and a single angry stamp of her right banana-yellow rubber boot, “And I’m not little!”

Heidi threw herself like a sack of potatoes onto her favourite armchair, parked to the side of the workbench, the comfortable one the president had sat in. Of course, if it was big for him, it was ginormous for her. She sprawled about all over it, like she was on a king-sized bed, seemingly unable to get in the most comfortably seated position.

“I know you’re Miss Fischer, really—Heidi Ann Fischer. I was joking, you see,” said Professor Merlin, returning his attention back to the android. He was coercing an experimental positronium-thinking-chip into the female android’s already jam-packed chest cavity.

“Huh? Um … I don’t get it, Professor Merlin,” said Heidi, her eyebrows furrowed.

“Oh, it’s because you have an astronaut’s uniform on, so I called you little Miss Spacegirl,” explained Professor Merlin.

After a moment of adjusting the armchair’s cushions, Heidi said, “Oh, all right then. I get it now.”

She gathered herself together and sat attentively bolt upright. “What you doing with that lady, though?” she asked, looking curiously at the android on the workbench. Professor Merlin was clipping back into place various chest panels as if he was finishing off a three-dimensional human jigsaw puzzle.

“Well, it’s not really a lady—‍”

“Yes, she is,” interrupted Heidi.

“No, it really isn’t,” said Professor Merlin as he zipped up the android’s aqua-blue mohair jacket.

“Yes she is, you idiot,” pleaded Heidi, getting a little agitated. “And,” she added, sounding as serious as possible, “you shouldn’t be a naughty Professor.”

“What do you mean?”

“It’s rude looking under a lady’s clothes, so there,” said Heidi triumphantly.

The Professor laughed, shaking his head.

“Oi, stop laughing at me … or else,” said Heidi, her eyebrows tugging at her forehead.

“Or else?” said Professor Merlin curiously.

“Or else … I’m telling my mum!”

“What? But you don’t have a mum.”

“Erm … all right then, I don’t. I just said that because that’s what you say when people do things wrong.” She slumped back down into the armchair. It seemed to swallow her.

“I’m not laughing at you,” said Professor Merlin, “but at what you thought. This really isn’t a lady. It’s an android. It’s a robot that looks just like a real person.”

“That’s a robot!” roared Heidi sarcastically. “You must think I’m thick. It’s a lady, and you was giving her a heart transplant. So there!” Heidi looked grumpy now, and she folded her arms, buttoned her lips, and looked off to the side.

“Hmm … I don’t blame you, Heidi, for thinking this is a real lady,” enthused Professor Merlin. “She’s a remarkable invention—but there’s still a bit of work needed to get her behaving so that no one can tell she’s an android. She looks more human than most humans do—more than I do, anyways—but even her appearance can give her away.” Professor Merlin was really getting into his stride. “You see humans hav—‍”

“Shut up, now,” interrupted Heidi, “you’re taking too long to say things.” And she still sat grumpily and defiantly with folded arms.

“But I was just going to explain about facial expressions—‍”

“Shut up using big words as well! Factual Hexagons—that’s rubbish, that is,” said Heidi, kicking out her boots with her arms still tightly folded—she looked like a yellow-costumed Cossack dancer performing in mid-air.

“Look, I’ll tell you what, I’ll activate her, and we’ll see if you can tell if she’s not real—it’s a sort of Turing test. That’s a test whereby … erm, never mind … let’s just let you test her.”

Heidi shook her tight-lipped stony face, and still her arms were tightly folded. Then she just sat there motionless, perched rigidly on the end of the armchair, looking like a custard-skinned gargoyle.

Professor Merlin pinched the android’s nose and wriggled it until a delicate click pricked the laboratory. The android’s eyelids flickered open. Heidi was pretending not to look, but she was making a poor job of it. And when a loud snap sounded from the android, Heidi lost all semblance of her rigid defiance and fell back in fright into the cushions at the back of the armchair. Recovering her dignity as fast as she could, she righted herself, leant forwards on the palms of her hands, and stared hard and suspiciously at the prostrate android.

Professor Merlin stood back and planted himself on a wooden stool next to the armchair.

Suddenly the female android jerked, then lifted up, a bit clumsily, into a sitting position. With her twinkling blue eyes, she swivelled at right-angles and pushed herself off the workbench into a standing position. She looked very beautiful, but expressionless in her smart aqua-blue uniform. And she certainly looked real, but Professor Merlin had never convinced anyone in the top-secret Android Creation Team (ACT) that she was.

“Go on then, Heidi. She won’t harm you. Test her out.” Professor Merlin smiled encouragingly at Heidi.

“Erm … all right then, I will.”

She addressed the android. “Erm … hello, lady,” she said tentatively.

The android formed a smile, which froze on her face for a second. Then she spoke in a sweet feminine voice, “Hello, Heidi.”

The android then pulled up a nearby wooden chair from under a desk and sat facing Heidi.

Heidi looked over to Professor Merlin, seeking assurance.

“Go on, see if she’s real,” he said, his eyes blazing with encouragement.

Heidi looked shyly at the android, and said, “Erm … I don’t know what to say.”

“Then say nothing,” said the android.

“All right then, I will—‘nothing’!” Heidi laughed at her joke and bounced on the armchair. She looked like a busy pogo stick trying to get out of a giant banana. Professor Merlin was impressed that a five-year-old could make up such a clever joke. He knew that it was a sign that Heidi Fischer was a remarkable individual. The Space Agency had done well to find her. He couldn’t wait to see her intellectual development over the coming years.

The android once more fixed a frozen smile on Heidi.

“What did you think of my joke, lady?” asked Heidi, recovering herself.

“It was an interesting interpretation of my request.”

“Um … that’s quite big words. You have to use smaller ones,” demanded Heidi.

“Smaller words? Do you mean shorter ones?”

“Er … yes. Not big ones,” said Heidi.

“Not long ones,” corrected the android.

“Yes, that’s what I said, you id—” Heidi just about stopped herself calling the android an idiot.

Heidi stroked her chin, as she had often seen Professor Merlin do, and then asked, “Are you a real lady?”

“I am an android lady.”

“You look real, though.”

“I am a real android.”

“Have you got a real brain?”

“I use a hybrid distributed centralised network of positronium—‍”

A cushion came flying through the air from the ball of yellow anger and cuffed the android square on the face.

Heidi roared with a thunder seemingly impossible for such a small creature, “Shut up! Oooh, you big idiot! You little liar, you! Those is—I mean, are—long words.”

“I did not say I would not use long words,” explained the android.

Heidi looked towards Professor Merlin, puzzled and angry.

“All right, let’s all calm down,” said Professor Merlin in a cheery way, looking at Heidi. He turned to the android, smiled, and said, “Please go to the kitchen and make me a cup of tea and bring Heidi a glass of lemonade.”

“Yes, Professor Merlin,” said the android dutifully, and she rose slowly from the chair and started to amble out of the laboratory. But she stopped short of the door and began staring at some items on an upper shelf of a sturdy mahogany bookcase.

She waltzed closer to the bookcase. Her attention focused on a one-armed teddy bear sandwiched between a huge hardback book on Marxism and a luminescent cornflower-blue, pint-sized skeleton.

Her eyes traced along the heavily worn patches of the teddy bear’s skin and the loose stitching where the arm had come off.

Then her attention wandered across to the quietly glowing skeleton, curled up tightly like a rugby ball made of bones …

Her head cocked this way and that as she scrutinised the skeleton. Her eyes followed a white woollen thread hanging down from its neck attached to a label forlornly wafting in the cool breeze of the laboratory air-conditioning. She inspected the label.

On one side, it was plain white with a printed bar-code; on the other, it was a mass of gaudy colours, kind of kitschy, kind of scary and kind of cheesy in its melodramatic kind of way, with the words:

 

Hi. I’m Bony the skeleton.

Take me home for Christmas.

I’m a lonely Bony because—

I ain’t got no body!”

 

Bony the Luminescent Skelton

Now only 29.99 Eurodollars!!!

[Recommended price: 60 Eurodollars]

 

Size: small

Manufacturing code: 1678BTLS-2398-S

Patented 2395: Professor Merlin Creations

 

The android stepped back from the shelf and began looking repeatedly from the teddy bear to the skeleton in quick succession, as if she was trying to make a decision.

Then, finally, she carefully lifted the skeleton from the shelf.

The skeleton unfolded in her tentative grasp into a limp, human-like shape.

She turned and brought the skeleton over to Heidi and proffered it to her, saying, “This is Bony. He ain’t got no body.” The android laughed a little.

Heidi accepted Bony. “Thanks, um … Miss Android.”

The android said, “What did you think of my joke, Heidi?”

“Erm … quite good, I suppose.” But then Heidi started reading the label, and when she had finished, she said, “Except it ain’t your joke!”

The android smiled. “True. I hope you will make Bony less lonely. The teddy bear was well loved.”

Heidi thought about this. “Erm … the teddy’s broken, but I still love him. He’s my teddy. Professor Merlin has to fix him.”

“If I were you, I would not bank on that,” said the android.

“What you on about?” Heidi was trying to get the skeleton into a sitting position on the arm of the armchair.

“Well, he has been trying to fix me for ten years and I still don’t work properly.”

Heidi’s eyebrows launched up her forehead, and she burst into fits of hearty laughter. She promptly lost her balance and slipped off the armchair. “That’s a good joke this time, lady,” she said, rolling about on the dusty floor, not bothering to control her laughter. “Professor Merlin, did you hear that? She’s really funny.”

Professor Merlin stroked his chin and beamed. The android’s behaviour was definitely more human than ever before. The joke was genuine. And it wasn’t a stock joke as it was situational. It was damn right intelligent. He felt quite sure that the initiative and human-behaviour algorithms were accessing the experimental positronium-thinking-chip better than they did the previous chips. But there was still work to be done.

The android helped Heidi back onto the armchair (even retrieving the thrown cushion) and patted Heidi gently on the shoulder, which made Heidi giggle.

Finally, the android ambled off out of the laboratory with a smile on her face.

Professor Merlin moved over to the chair the android had vacated so he could face Heidi. “Well, what do you think?” he said, his eyes twinkling like diamonds.