Fiction: "The Boy with the Metal Arm"

 

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.