Committed

COMMITTED by A.R. Kirby Episode 18 Christian has been a busy, busy man “Get somebody down here to look at his arm,” Christian said nonchalantly, picking at his shirt cuff as he passed Gregor, still standing rigidly by the cell door. “And have them patch up whatever else I did to him, too. I want him healthy -- and soon. The Professor has a new project scheduled for next week.” Christian barely heard the barked “Yes, sir!” from the guard as his footsteps echoed down the polished Seamantium corridor. The walls gleamed with a muted iridescence, and Christian’s distorted reflection strode in time with his ringing footsteps. When he was a safe distance away, Christian noticed Gregor hitting the com button on the collar of his uniform. Several floors above, a medical droid snapped out of standby mode and glided silently toward the cell where it would repair Ivan’s battered body. Again. As he made his way down the tube-like corridor, Christian’s thoughts turned to the man currently charged with guarding Ivan Mirko. I may have to see about giving young Gregor a promotion, he thought as he reached the door to his private turbolift. He seems to be smart, he shows the proper deference... He paused for a moment and pressed the button to call the car. An indicator above the doorway blinked, and Christian watched the lift begin its progress toward his current location on Sub-Basement 5. C hristian walked out of the cell, smiling widely as he heard the door hiss shut behind him. Committed by A.R. Kirby On the other hand, watching after that pile of what used to be a man isn’t the most difficult task ever presented to a person, Christian pointed out to himself. A trained monkey could do it. That promotion might have to wait. Christian looked up at the progress indicator above the door to the lift and huffed. Crossing his arms and tapping his foot impatiently, he watched and waited as the lights moved -- ever so slowly -- down from the secret entrance behind his public office at McKenna-Montenegro Enterprises to where he now stood. To say the least, the snail’s pace of the turbolifts was the one single anomaly in the entire complex. Everything else was far, far beyond state-of-the-art -- and worked with a precision and cold efficiency one would expect in a complex designed, constructed, maintained and defended by evil robots. From the very beginning, Christian knew his father’s plan for the Robotics Division was going to be big, even though he didn’t much care about it when the idea was first proposed. The original plan -- the one he later vowed to continue, after Seamus died -- was for McKenna-Montenegro Enterprises to build a lowcost, robotic bathroom cleaner using the new technology developed by the company. And that the company did. The prototypes exceeded even their designers’ wildest dreams. The nanotechnology developed by the MME scientists allowed the company to produce a unit made entirely of low-cost, nearly indestructible Seamantium, powered by ultra-efficient solar arrays that could give the units a 24-hour charge on a minimum 5-minute exposure to fluorescent bathroom lighting. The units (Christian privately called them pissbots) featured a wide range of cleaning tools, from scrubbing pads to brushes, concealed seamlessly in the units’ bodies and which could be utilized in whatever fashion a particular job required. The higher-end models also included advanced artificial intelligence that allowed the units to interact socially with humans, making the units a type of android bathroom attendant which could dispense 2 Episode 18 a wide range of personal hygiene products -- from breath mints to condoms -- while maintaining its cleaning functions. Thanks to the replicating functions of some nanomachines working furiously deep within the metallic guts of the units, each pissbot could constantly replenish a five-year supply of solvents and cleaners to be dispensed as needed. The Seamantium construction of the units also meant that they were incredibly light (around 50 pounds), as well as practically indestructible. And each unit, no matter the model or its capabilities, was shaped like a traffic cone sitting atop a basketball, with both the ball and cone made of a gleaming, smooth iridescent metal, with single black glass oval staring out near the top of the cone. They were designed to be maintenance-free for the owner; in fact, the robots were manufactured with a sealed construction that could only be accessed by a certified MME technician at a specified three-year service check. While hopes were high for the pissbots, no one at McKenna-Montenegro -- or anyone else for that matter -- dreamed that the shiny metal bathroom attendants would be as popular as they became. Restaurants, hotels, and offices from across the globe clamored for the robots from the day they were first introduced. The arrival of the robots in a number of Las Vegas casinos, in fact, incited a brief riot on behalf of the bathroom attendants’ union, whose members felt their jobs were in danger (the human attendants were later given jobs as parking valets and the pissbots stayed). The market was growing, too, from businesses to homes -- it was quite a status symbol to have an MME Bathroom Buddy™ wandering around the master suite. McKenna Montenegro currently held eight months’ worth of back orders, and the Robotics Division was kicking out new units as quickly as possible, day and night. Christian looked again at the turbolift display. Was it even moving? Despite the advances elsewhere at MME, the reality was that there was nothing remotely “turbo” about the turbolifts. They defied time and movement. It was possible to walk -- at a very leisurely pace -- up seventy flights of stairs from Sub-Basement 3 Committed by A.R. Kirby 5, and still get to the lobby of the complex before the turbolift. If one had the inclination, it was also possible to stop for a cigarette somewhere around the fortieth flight of stairs and still get to the top before the lift. Christian knew this because he had done it. He looked down and unrolled the Wired he still held in his hand, his smiling face on the cover partially obscured by a smatter of Ivan’s blood. Christian grinned. He’d actually done it. McKenna-Montenegro was bringing attention -- and money -- to Podgorica. MME’s advances in metallurgy, robotics, and artificial intelligence were being hailed across the scientific community. Christian himself was becoming a celebrity. The younger McKenna allowed himself a moment of selfsatisfaction. In the space of a year, he’d worked hard to bring Seamus’ dream to life. Of course, Christian had his own dreams still to be realized. Christian’s new dream came forth the same day Ivan tried to have him killed at the aluminum smelter. While he couldn’t remember exactly what happened, or how it happened, he came back from the experience a changed man. He could, of course, remember how the giant worker from the aluminum plant, Konstantin, picked him up and hoisted him above the railing on that high observation platform. He could never forget his feeling of panic as he looked into Ivan’s face, and his horror at the recognition of what was about to happen to him. Then a toss from Konstantin, and the wind on his face as he fell... Then nothing. He awoke in his father’s chair at the MME offices, feeling like never before -- he felt strong and powerful, with a malevolent gleam in his eye. Somehow he knew about the powers he developed, as well as how to use them. He could read people’s minds and plant mental commands in their brains; he could move objects telekinetically. And sitting in that chair, he felt a desire in him like nothing he’d ever felt before. He lusted for power. Not just the power that would come with being a billionaire industrialist (he knew that was a foregone conclusion, thanks to the pissbots), but power over people’s lives. He had the abilities; now 4 Episode 18 it was up to him to put them to their best use. That’s when Christian’s ambivalence toward the alternative potential of the pissbots changed drastically. All he knew -- and he knew it in the depths of his soul -- was that he was destined to rule the world, and these unassuming bathroom robots would help him achieve that goal. Turning abruptly from the still-descending turbolift, Christian crossed the hallway and opened the door to the stairwell. He clomped up two flights of stairs to Sub-Basement 4, better known as Research and Development, and opened the door into the hallway. It was identical to the one a floor below, with the turbolift doors directly across from him. “The lifts are incredibly slow today, da?” he heard a familiar voice say. “It took me 20 minutes just to get down here from storage.” Christian smiled and looked to his left, where stood a woman in a white lab coat and wire-rimmed glasses, holding a plastic looped handle in one hand, to which was attached a small gray box. Her long, black hair was pulled back in a ponytail that hung halfway down her back. Her skin and complexion were as flawless porcelain. Under her lab coat she wore a fitted black leotard and leggings that showed off her toned and shapely body. The tall stiletto heels she wore seemed unfit for lab work, but she apparently managed. “Ah, Professor,” Christian said as he walked over to the woman and kissed her on the cheek. “They are horrible today. Do you think you’ll have time to get one of the maintenance bots to run another diagnostic this afternoon?” “I don’t know,” said Anna Sukovich, as the Professor was legally known, her accent heavy and Russian. She lifted the box for Christian to see. “I’m about to load these plasma modules for the nanovirus test I’m running this afternoon. But I’ll see what I can do.” She grabbed Christian’s hand in her free hand and the two started walking toward a hermetically-sealed door at the end of the hallway. 5 Committed by A.R. Kirby Christian knew that the Professor would get the diagnostic done this afternoon, and probably spend hours later on that evening analyzing the data. It was just the kind of woman she was. Previously, the Professor was one of the scientists working on the creation of Seamantium at MME. Now, Anna was Christian’s righthand woman, handling all his research efforts, working closely with him on his plan to take over the world, and sharing his bed. She would want to know why these wonderful machines could not get such a simple thing as an elevator right, and she would work on it until she got an answer she liked. One of the answers she definitely got right, in Christian’s view, was how the pissbots could be modified. One day -- not long after the smelter incident -- Christian squirreled away a couple of prototype bathroom units. He brought these to the Professor for modification. Using the AI and nanotech already built in to the pissbots, Anna and Christian were able to create multi-function machines that could -- theoretically -- become self-sustaining. As luck would have it, theory panned out. The first pair of modified prototypes began building other robots, and those robots begat more specialized robots. Within a few days, Christian had a small robot army which began construction of the hidden underground lair. The number of robots expanded almost exponentially, and quick work was made of the project. Some of the robots excavated the space needed for the facility; others formed and shaped the Seamantium that lined and supported every inch of the compound. Some of the more angry robots were tasked with creating the myriad “security” devices used, and they developed dozens of different types of gleaming death machines and traps. In less than four months, Christian had a lair any super villain would have been proud to call home. Except for the damned turbolifts. But the Professor would certainly sort that out. Her groundbreaking work with nanotechnology was directly responsible for the creation of the artificial intelligence that allowed the pissbots to do their jobs so well. It shouldn’t have come as a surprise; the woman was off-thecharts smart. As a child prodigy in Soviet Russia, Anna became a ward of the state at age 9. From then on, she was trained to be 6 Episode 18 a super-scientist. She excelled, earning a number of advanced degrees, including doctorates in quantum physics, molecular anatomy, nuclear science, and medicine -- all by age 20. Unfortunately, with the fall of Communism, Mother Russia could no longer afford funding for hypothetical science, and Anna was essentially put out on the street. In the early 1990s, times were tough for mercenary scientists, and Anna was forced to do some work she wasn’t particularly proud of -- dirty bombs for North Korea, spy gear for an offshoot of the Red Hand, and so on. The money, when it came, was good. But Anna longed for something more. The “something more” came in the form of Seamus McKenna, who found out about Anna through some of his old black market contacts. He eventually got in touch with the brilliant young Russian, and got her to come to work for him. At MME, she blossomed; Anna was able to work on whatever she wanted. Seamus knew such genius would eventually produce results. And it did. She and Christian were surrounded by the evidence. The two reached the lab, and the Professor pressed a touchscreen on the side of the door with a manicured finger. The door hissed open, and both she and Christian walked inside. “I thought you might want to have a look at this,” Christian said as Anna took her chair behind a chrome glass-topped desk. He unfurled the battered copy of Wired and laid it on the desk in front of her. Anna put a finger to her chin and looked intently at Christian’s smiling visage next to one of the pissbots. “Nice,” she said, looking over the top of her glasses at Christian. “The blood is a special touch.” “Oh yeah,” Christian replied, almost sheepishly. “I went to see Ivan this morning. But not to worry. I’ve got fifty more pristine copies in my office.” “Ivan?” Anna used the end of a pencil to push the magazine to the edge of the desk. “You should be a bit more careful with that 7 Committed by A.R. Kirby man. Ivan’s bodily fluids need to be kept inside Ivan.” “Is there something I should know here?” “Nyet, nyet. There is nothing to worry about today. He is clean; I made certain before I sent him back to his cell. However, I do all kinds of tests on him -- there is no telling what I will have in his veins from one day to next. You don’t want to start a nanovirus plague in here, do you?” “Of course not.” Christian cocked an eyebrow at the magazine on the desk. “Well, then, don’t make him bleed so much. Or if you do, keep it in his cell. I don’t want to call you Patient Zero.” Christian shifted somewhat uncomfortably and took a chair opposite the Professor’s desk. He concentrated briefly, and a crystal paperweight on the edge of the desk rose slowly into the air. When it was a foot above the desk, it began rotating in place. Christian grinned at Anna. She grinned back -- briefly -and then turned her attention to some paperwork on the desk in front of her. “So what truly fantastic science thing are you up to today?” Christian asked as he made the paperweight trace figure eights around a corner of the desk. “Come up with anything new and cool to suppress humanity?” “No,” she sighed, still looking at her paperwork. “Nothing fun. I’m actually working on the opposite.” “What?” “Tissue-regenerating nanoviruses. I know. It sounds silly. But I should be able to program the nanoviruses to regenerate human tissue -- bone, muscle, tendons, everything but brain tissue.” “Why on earth would you do that?” The paperweight began a series of slow spirals to the ceiling and back down again. “Necessity. The only real test subject I have is Ivan, and 8 Episode 18 I almost kill him three days a week. I do what I can. But it is not easy to keep a man like him alive. Now his body needs some outside assistance in order to keep Ivan from becoming no more than a lump of meat.” “Do what you have to do.” The paperweight fell with a sharp crack on the glass top of the desk. Both Christian and Anna waited for a moment to see if either the table or the paperweight would shatter and break. Neither did. Anna pushed her paperwork aside and looked directly at Christian. “I am not one to judge,” she said, her voice quietly serious, “but why do you hate him so?” “He betrayed me. It’s that simple.” “I doubt that.” Christian knew from Anna’s stare that she expected him to go further into detail. He took a deep breath. For the past couple of months, the two of them had been working on ways for Christian to get more in touch with his inner feelings. He recognized this as a moment where he would be expected to delve into his psyche for a good explanation of what he was currently experiencing. “Whew... okay...” Christian paused and folded his hands in front of his chest. “Um, you see, Ivan was truly like family to me, even more than Seamus. Yeah, it was dysfunctional family, to be sure, but still family. When I was a boy, I’d go run see Ivan after my da beat me for whatever it was I did -- or what he might have thought I did. Ivan took me under his wing and showed me everything I needed to know at the plant when I started working there when I was thirteen. He even arranged for me to lose my virginity with one of the women in the secretarial pool on my sixteenth birthday!” Anna looked even more intently at Christian. He turned his face to look at a portrait of Einstein on the wall of the lab. 9 Committed by A.R. Kirby “Ivan was more of a father to me than my father was,” Christian said quietly. “That he would try to betray me... no, he didn’t try... he did betray me. But I was the luckiest son of a bitch on the planet that day. I should be dead. But I’m not. And Ivan will suffer as long as his bloated body will hold out.” “I love it when you’re vengeful,” Anna said, leaning back in her chair, her lab coat falling open. “But I don’t know how much more he can take, especially if I can’t get the regeneration program working properly. Getting the nanoviruses to rip apart a human being is so much easier and so much more fun than putting them back together.” Christian smiled, then leaned over the desk and kissed Anna deeply. It was nice to have a soulmate that shared his newlydeveloped sense of evil. 10