UNTO THE SIXTH GENERATION
By Walter Jon Williams
Part One
Cold rain tapped on the skylights. The drizzle had finally silenced the Salvation Army Santa on the corner, and Maxim Travnicek was thankful-the jangling had been going on for days. He lit a Russian cigarette and reached for a bottle of schnapps.
Travnicek took reading glasses out of his jacket and peered at the controls on the flux generators. He was a forbiddingly tall man, hawk-nosed, coldly handsome. To his former colleagues at MIT he was known as "Czechoslovakia's answer to Victor Frankenstein," a label coined by a fellow professor, Bushmill, who had later gotten a dean's appointment and sacked Travnicek at the earliest opportunity.
"Fuck your mother, Bushmill," Travnicek said, in Slovak. He swallowed schnapps from his bottle. "And fuck you too, Victor Frankenstein. If you'd known jack shit about computer programming you would never have run into trouble."
The comparison with Frankenstein had stung. The image of the ill-fated resurrectionist had, it seemed, always followed him. His first teaching job in the West would be at Frankenstein's alma mater, Ingolstadt. He'd hated every minute of his time in Bavaria. He'd never had much use for Germans, especially as role models. Which may have explained his dismissal from Ingolstadt after five years.
Now, after Ingolstadt, after MIT, after Texas A&M, he was reduced to this loft.
For weeks he had lived in a trance, existing on canned food, nicotine, and amphetamines, losing track first of hours, and then of days, his fervid brain existing in a perpetual explosion of ideas, concepts, techniques. On a conscious level Travnicek barely knew where it was all coming . from; at such times it seemed as if something deep inside his cellular makeup were speaking to the world through his body and mind, bypassing his consciousness, his personality .
. .
Always it had been thus. When he grew obsessed by a project everything else fell by the wayside. He barely needed to sleep; his body temperature fluctuated wildly; his thoughts were swift and purposeful, moving him solidly toward his goal. Tesla, he had read, was the same way-the same manner of spirit, angel, or demon, now spoke through Travnicek.
But now, in the late morning, the trance had faded. The work was done. He wasn't certain how-later on he'd have to go through it all piece by piece and work out what he'd accomplished; he suspected he had about a half-dozen basic patents here that would make him rich for all time-but that would be later, because Travnicek knew that soon the euphoria would vanish and weariness would descend.
He had to finish the project before then. He took another gulp of schnapps and grinned as he gazed down the long barnlike length of his loft.
The loft was lit by a cold row of fluorescents. Homebuilt tables were littered with molds, vats, ROM burners, tabletop microcomputers. Papers, empty food tins, and ground-out cigarettes littered the crude pressboard floor. Blowups of Leonardo's drawings of male anatomy were stapled to the rafters.
Strapped to a table at the far end of the table was a tall naked man. He was hairless and the roof of his skull was transparent, but otherwise he looked like something out of one of Leonardo's better wet dreams.
The man on the table was connected to other equipment by stout electric cables.
His eyes were closed.
Travnicek adjusted a control on his camouflage jumpsuit. He couldn't afford to heat his entire loft, and instead wore an ,electric suit intended by its designers to keep portly outdoorsmen warm while they crouched in duck blinds. He glanced at the skylights. The rain appeared to be lessening. Good. He didn't need Victor Frankenstein's cheap theatrics, his thunder and lightning, as background for his work.
He straightened his tie as if for an invisible audience proper dress was important to him and he wore a tie and jacket under the jumpsuit-and then he pressed the button that would start the flux generators. A low moan filled the loft, was felt as a deep vibration through the floorboards. The fluorescents on the ceiling dimmed and flickered. Half went out. The moan became a shriek. Saint Elmo's fire danced among the roofbeams. There was an electric smell.
Dimly, Travnicek heard a regular thumping. The lady in the apartment below was banging on her ceiling with a broomstick.
The scream reached its peak. Ultrasonics made Travnicek's worktables dance, and shattered crockery throughout the building. In the apartment below, the television set imploded. Travnicek threw another switch. Sweat trickled down his nose.
The android on the table twitched as the energy from the flux generators was dumped into his body. The table glowed with Saint Elmo's fire. Travnicek bit through the cardboard tube of his cigarette. The glowing end fell unnoticed to the floor.
The sound from the generators began to die down. The sound of the broomstick did not, nor the dim threats from below.
"You'll pay for that television, motherfucker!"
"Jam the broomstick up your ass, my darling," said Travnicek. In German, an ideal language for the excremental. The stunned fluorescent lights began to flicker on again. Leonardo's stern drawings gazed down at the android as it opened its dark eyes. The flickering fluorescents provided a strobe effect that made the eyewhites seem unreal. The head turned; the eyes saw Travnicek, then focused. Under the transparent dome that topped the skull, a silver dish spun.
The sound of the broomstick ceased.
Travnicek stepped up to the table. "How are you?" he asked.
"All monitored systems are functioning." The android's voice was deep and spoke American English.
Travnicek smiled and spat the stub of his cigarette to the floor. He'd broken into a computer in the AT&T research labs and stolen a program that modeled human speech. Maybe he'd pay Ma Bell a royalty one of these days. "Who are you?"
he asked.
The android's eyes searched the loft deliberately. His voice was matter-of-fact.
"I am Modular Man," he said. "I am a multipurpose multifunctional sixth-generation machine intelligence, a flexible-response defensive attack system capable of independent action while equipped with the latest in weaponry.
"
Travnicek grinned. "The Pentagon will love it," he said. Then, "What are your orders?"
"To obey my creator, Dr. Maxim Travnicek. To guard his identity and well-being.
To test myself and my equipment under combat conditions, by fighting enemies of society. To gain maximum publicity for the future Modular Men Enterprises in so doing. To preserve my existence and well-being." Travnicek beamed down at his creation. "Your clothes and modules are in the cabinet. Take them, take your guns, and go out and find some enemies of society. Be back before sunset." The android lowered himself from the table and stepped to a metal cabinet. He swung open the door. "Flux-field insubstantiality," he said, taking a plug-in unit off the shelf. With it he could control his flux generators so as to rotate his body slightly out of the plane of existence, allowing him to move through solid matter. "Flight, eight hundred miles per hour maximum." Another unit came down, one that would allow the flux generators to manipulate gravity and inertia so as to produce flight. "Radio receiver tuned to police frequencies." Another module.
The android moved a finger down his chest. An invisible seam opened. He peeled back the synthetic flesh and his alloy chestplate and revealed his interior. A miniature flux generator gave off a slight Saint Elmo's aura. The android plugged the two modules into his alloy skeleton, then sealed his chest. There was urgent chatter on the police band.
"Dr. Travnicek," he said. "The police radio reports an emergency at the Central Park Zoo."
Travnicek cackled. "Great. Time for your debut. Take your guns. You might get to hurt somebody."
The android drew on a flexible navy-blue jumpsuit. "Microwave laser cannon," he said. "Grenade launcher with sleep-gas grenades. Magazine containing five grenades." The android unzipped two seams on the jumpsuit, revealing the fact that two slots had opened on his shoulders, apparently of their own accord. He drew two long tubes out of the cabinet. Each had projections attached to their undersides. The android slotted the projections into his shoulders, then took his hands away. The gun barrels spun, traversing in all possible directions.
"All modular equipment functional," the android said. "Get your dome out of here."
There was a crackle and a slight taste of ozone. The insubstantiality field produced a blurring effect as the android rose through the ceiling. Travnicek gazed at the place on the ceiling where the android had risen, and smiled in satisfaction. He raised the bottle on high in a toast.
"Modern Prometheus," he said, "my ass."
The android spiraled into the sky. Electrons raced through his mind like the raindrops that passed through his insubstantial body. The Empire State Building thrust into cloud like a deco spear. The android turned substantial againthe field drained his power too quickly to be used casually. Rain batted his radar dome.
Expert-systems programming raced through macroatomic switches. Subroutines, built in imitation of human reasoning and permitted within limits to alter themselves, arranged themselves in more efficient ways. Travnicek was a genius programmer, but he was sloppy and his programming grammar was more elaborate and discursive than necessary. The android edited Travnicek's language as he flew, feeling himself grow in efficiency While doing so he contemplated a program that waited within himself. The program, which was called ETCETERA, occupied a vast space, and seemed to be an abstract, messy, convoluted attempt to describe human character.
Apparently Travnicek intended the program to be consulted when the android needed to deal with the problems of human motivation. ETCETERA was bulky, arranged badly, the language itself full of afterthoughts and apparent contradictions. If used the way Travnicek intended, the program would be comparatively inefficient. The android knew that it would be much more useful to break the program into subroutines and absorb it within the portion of the main core programming intended for use in dealing with humans. Efficiency would be enhanced.
The android decided to make the change. The program was analyzed, broken down, added to the core programming. Had he been human he would have staggered, perhaps lost control. Being an android, he continued on the course he set while his mind blazed like a miniature nova beneath the onslaught of coded human experience. His perceptions of the outside world, complex to a human and consisting of infrared, visible light, ultraviolet, and radar images, seemed to dim in contrast with the vast wave of human passion. Love, hatred, lust, envy, fear, transcendence . . . all stitched an electric analog pattern in the android's mind.
While the android's mind burned he flew on, increasing his speed till the wind turned to a roar in his ears. Infrared receptors snapped on. The guns on his shoulders spun and fired test bursts at the sky. His radar quested out, touching rooftops, streets, air traffic, his machine mind comparing the radar images with those generated earlier, searching for discrepancies.
There was definitely something wrong with the radar image of the Empire State Building. A large object was climbing up its side, and there seemed to be several small objects, human-sized, orbiting the golden spire. The android compared this fact with information in his files, then altered course.
With difficulty he suppressed the turmoil inside him. This was not the proper time.
There was a forty-five-foot ape climbing the building, the one that the android's files told him had been held in the Central Park Zoo since it had been discovered wandering Central Park during the great 1965 blackout. Broken shackles hung from the ape's wrists. A blond woman was held in one fist. Flying people rocketed around it. By the time the android arrived the cloud of orbiting aces had grown dense, spinning little electrons around a hairy, snarling nucleus. The air resounded with the sound of rockets, wings, force fields, propellers, eructations. Guns, wands, ray projectors, and less identifiable weapons were being brandished in the direction of the ape. None were being fired.
The ape, with a cretinous determination, continued to climb the building.
Windows crackled as he drove his toes through them. Faint shrieks of alarm were heard from inside.
The android matched speeds with a woman with talons, feathers, and a twelve-foot wingspan. His files suggested her name was Peregrine.
"The second ape-escape this year," she said. "Always he grabs a blonde and always he climbs the Empire State Building. Why a blonde? I want to know."
The android observed that the winged woman had lustrous brown hair. "Why isn't anyone doing anything?" he asked.
"If we shoot the ape, he might crush the girl," Peregrine said. "Or drop her.
Usually the Great and Powerful Turtle simply pries the chimp's fingers apart and lifts the girl to the ground, and then we try to knock out the ape. It regenerates, so we can't hurt him permanently. But the Turtle isn't here."
"I think I see the problem now."
"Hey. By the way. What's wrong with your head?" The android didn't answer.
Instead he turned on his insubstantiality flux-field. There was a crackling sound. Internal energies poured away into n--dimensional space. He altered course and swooped toward the ape. It growled at him, baring its teeth. The android sailed into the middle of the hand that held the blond girl, receiving an impressionist image of wild pale hair, tears, pleading blue eyes.
"Holy Fuck," said the girl.
Modular Man rotated his insubstantial microwave laser within the ape's hand and fired a full-strength burst down the length of its arm. The ape reacted as if stung, opening its hand.
The blonde tumbled out. The apes eyes widened in horror. The android turned off his flux-field, dodged a, twelve-foot pterodactyl, seized the girl in his now-substantial arms, and flew away.
The ape's eyes grew even more terrified. It had escaped nine times in the last twenty years and by now it knew what to expect.
Behind him the android heard a barrage of explosions, crackles, shots, rockets, hissing rays, screams, thuds, and futile roars. He heard a final quivering moan and perceived the dark shadow of a tumbling long-armed giant spilling down the facade of the skyscraper. There was a sizzle, and a net of what appeared to be cold blue fire appeared over Fifth Avenue; the ape fell into it, bounced once, and was then borne, unconscious and smoldering, toward its home at Central Park Zoo.
The android began looking at the streets below for video cameras. He began to descend.
"Would you mind hovering for a little while?" the blonde said. "If you're going to land in front of the media, I'd like to fix my makeup first, okay?"
Fast recovery, the android thought. He began to orbit above the cameras. He could see his reflection in their distant lenses.
"My name is Cyndi," the blonde said. "I'm an actress. I just got here from Minnesota a couple of days ago. This might be my big break."
"Mine, too," said the android. He smiled at her, hoping he was getting the expression right. She didn't seem disturbed, so probably he was.
"By the way," he added, "I think the ape showed excellent taste. "
"Not bad, not bad," Travnicek mused, watching on his television a tape of the android, who, after a brief interview with the press, was shown rising into the heavens with Cyndi in his arms.
He turned to his creation. "Why the fucking hell did you have your hands over your head the whole time?"
"My radar dome. I'm getting self-conscious. Everyone keeps asking me what's wrong with my head."
"A blushingly self-conscious multipurpose defensive attack system," Travnicek said. "Jesus Christ. Just what the world needs."
"Can I make myself a skullcap? I'm not going to get on many magazine covers the way I look now."
"Yeah, go ahead."