The Boy with
the Metal Arm
By Barry
Greenstein
My cell of Undergrounders controlled
tunnel access near the border fence between the human side and the Machine side
of town. We patrolled the area regularly. We used the tunnels to hide. We hid
in the tunnels. Very rarely, we crossed over to the Machine side to hide from
the Establishment. But that felt wrong. As revolutionaries, we sympathized with
the Machines’ past struggle against humankind. We didn’t want to intrude upon
their spaces. Fleshguilt, I suppose.
It was the Year of the Donkey. Our
struggle was difficult. We had lost several good people to drones this year. And
finally, the night came when our headquarters in the tunnels was discovered. We
suspected a rat. We ran from the Security Service, through the tunnels, into
Machine territory, where the Establishment’s authorities did not follow us.
They could not, by law, follow us there.
We split up, and I hid in a former
discotheque. But I was not alone. There was a boy there, that I recognized. He
had a metal prosthetic right arm. The boy with the metal arm begged for money
outside Goldberg’s Coffee Shop every day. I saw him on my way to the maglev. I
never knew his name until today. I had asked him where his parents were, and he
said something about his creator not making him parents. He added “He did not
even finish me,” and he gestured with his crude robotic right arm.
I had seen artificial humans
before, but they always had the appearance of adults. This boy looked about
fourteen. Was he really a Machine? Had he always looked this way? Or had the Machines
found a way to sustain biological growth, rather than merely mimicking the
appearance of biological organisms?
There were artificial humans, they
were rare, but they did exist. Mostly they were rare because they didn’t come
here. We don’t have a great history of human-Machine relations on our planet.
There was a war here, which other planets consider something of an affront.
There was a moral panic about Machinekind that led to hostilities years ago.
But it’s in the past. Now we stick to our side of the colony, and they stick to
theirs. Mostly.
“I’ve seen you on the other side,
begging for money,” I said. “If what you tell me is true, you shouldn’t be
there.”
“I am a unique Machine,” said the
boy. “I am designed to grow. I must eat. That is why I need money. I must add
mass to my body. I am a biological machine.”
“The other Machines don’t accept
you?” I asked. “You are too human for them?”
“It is something like that,” said
the boy.
“Are you really a Machine, kid, or
are you putting me on?” I asked.
“I am incapable of lying to a
human, sir,” he said, and I believed him. It wasn’t in his programming.
“Come to my side of the city,” I
said.
He might have been incapable of
lying, but he was no more obedient and no less argumentative than a typical fourteen-year-old.
“I am not like the other Machines.
But I am not like you. I do not have a place to go. I cannot lie and I cannot
self-terminate.”
“Do you have a name?” I asked him.
“Caliban,” he said. “My maker named
me Caliban.”
What a cruel trick, the thought
occurred to me. To name him for a monster.
“Caliban, can I call you Cal for
short?”
“You may abbreviate my name if it
eases communication,” said the machine-boy.
“My name is Daric. Daric Fennom.
Let me take you to the colony’s social service unit,” I said. “They can help
you.”
He shook his head, and when he did,
he was at his most emotional.
“You cannot do that,” he said. “I
am a Machine. The enemy. They will turn me over to the policers, who will
destroy me. But first, they will torture me, to find out if there are more like
me. There are not any others such as me. But they will not believe me.”
“You’re unique?” I asked. He had
already said so, but I wanted him to clarify it.
“I have no serial number,” he said.
“I am not a prototype. I am an individual.”
“Do you age?” I asked.
“Yes,” he said. “I am programmed to
grow and learn like a human child.”
It really was an exceptionally good
imitation of a kid. It knew all the right things to say. I realized that I had
begun to think of him as an “it.”
“Look, I can give you a place to
stay for a night, but I’m still contacting social services in the morning. I
promise I won’t let them hurt you. Deal?”
“Affirmative,” he said, finally
agreeing.
“Hold on a minute while I get my
breakfast,” I said, and I went into the store. But when I came back out, the
kid was gone.
So, then he very much could lie.
I received a message from one of my
cellmates that it was safe to cross back over to the human side. That the
Security patrol was gone. I went to tunnel access and descended underground to
cross back over. I wondered if I would ever see Caliban again.
#
The local kids knew about the
tunnels. It was where they went to smoke jerba
leaf and have sloppy sex. My cell
only took over Tunnel 3 last year and installed security doors to keep the kids
out. The Security Service cut through those doors last night. Fortunately, we
kept the place lightly. Most of the items we stored down there were portable.
We were able to clear out of there. There were only a few of us left in the
cell. Five to be exact. And only four made it back from the Machine side. We
didn’t meet again until three days later when we rendezvoused at Goldberg’s as
per our emergency plan.
I told
them about the kid.
“It must
have been a trick,” said Josip. He didn’t believe the Machines had created an
artificial human. Our colony didn’t have that kind of technology. Our
Machinekind was primitive compared to the Synthetics that inhabited other
worlds. Our Machinekind was metal and plastic, not Synthetic flesh.
And yet,
I remained half-convinced the boy might have been telling the truth. Perhaps
the Machines had made a breakthrough. A perfectly artificial human imitation
would have been the next evolutionary step for Machinekind.
Brandi
seemed more believing. She said we should help him if we encounter him again.
Eris
agreed. That made three out of four. Josip was overruled.
But I
hadn’t seen the kid outside Goldberg’s yet.
The next day, I saw Caliban outside
Goldberg’s again. He explained that he hid because he did not want to be
reported to social services. I accepted his explanation and took him in my car
back to my two-bedroom bungalow on Ranier Street. He was very sleepy, for a
robot. I put him to bed, and the next morning, I called social services.
“Look, I have this kid here, the
one who always hung out by Tufi’s? You know him? Oh, you do know him… well…
thanks. That about explains it,” went my end of the conversation. It turns out
Caliban was well known to the folks at social services. He was a chronic
runner.
This was no android.
I had been fooled.
His name was Anders Kendark, he was
from a group home in Sector 3, where the other kids bullied him because of his
prosthetic arm. He always had reasons for running away. Social services found
it was ineffective to chase him when they could more effectively monitor him in
the community. In theory. But then he went over to the machine side, and when
he came back, the social worker told me, he started talking like he was a
humaniform machine.
“But he’s not?” I must have asked
the social worker a dozen times. “He’s a real kid?”
“Machines are too, and some of them
have personalities like children, but I’ve never heard of a child machine.
Doesn’t mean it’s impossible, just that I don’t think the corporation that
built them thought making artificial children was profitable,” said the social
worker. “Anders is known to us. He’s always been a little off, he had warning
signs, and this is probably early psychosis. A delusional disorder, probably. He
does really seem to believe he’s a machine. He’s internalized it. We’ll understand
it better after the doctor sees him.”
“Look, I’m no expert on kids, but
this can’t be healthy. Are you just going to let him go on believing he’s an
android?”
“No, now that you’ve alerted us to
this latest development, we’re going to get him help. He’s going to go to the
psychiatric unit. Medication and therapy.”
“And he’s definitely a real kid?” I
asked, once more.
“Yes, Anders is real. He used to
hang out at the central library, I’m assuming that’s where he came across the
name ‘Caliban,’ which he’s insisting we call him. Like I said, meds and
therapy,” said the social worker, who seemed like he’d had this conversation
with other “Good Samaritans” like me before, and this was nothing new to him.
“Can I at least say goodbye?” I
asked.
“Yes,” said the social worker.
They took me into a small room
where Anders was on the other side of a pane of safety glass. He looked angry
and sullen.
“You betrayed me. I asked you not
to do this. They will torture me and they will destroy me!” he said.
“I had to call them, I was doing
the responsible thing,” I said.
“You’ll be responsible for my
death.”
You’ll. He used a contraction. Was that
the façade breaking?
“You need help,” I said. “You’re
going to get help. One day you’ll look back on this and realize what’s been
done for you. Until then, I’m sorry,” I said.
The social worker told me it was
time to go. Time to take Anders to psychiatric.
I had a tiny, nagging doubt that
maybe he really was telling the truth, and he was just a very emotional
android. But then, the contraction…
I went home. I kept going to Tufi
and Pok’s for my breakfast. But I never saw the boy with the metal arm again.
