ANA Reborn by Carl Facciponte - HTML preview
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Chapter 7
na said, “Hi, Francine. Martha told me you A thought it would be okay if Rhett and I took a walk alone. She said she bounced it off you, but I thought I would check. We don’t plan on straying too far from the building. Do you see any problem with the two of us walking around?”
Francine looked up from her clean desktop.
“Sure, go ahead. I have no qualms about the two of you walking downtown, but please,” she said, holding her hands at mid-chest level, “don’t go down any lonely streets or dark alleys.”
“Are you worried someone may try to hurt us? You know we’re very resilient.”
“No, that’s not my worry at all,” said Francine, shaking her head from side to side. “My concern is if someone attacked you,they could be seriously hurt, and it would draw attention to yourselves. Has anyone told you how Gabriella beat the snot out of attackers on two occasions?”
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“Gabriella was attacked!?” Ana used her best surprised gasp.
“Yes, she was. A single knife-wielding attacker tried to rob her after she come out of a self-defense class with Martha. Talk about your bad timing, huh? He was hurt, vomiting, and curled into a fetal position on the pavement as she phoned the police. The second time three men who seemed to have military training attacked her. She left two of them lying on the sidewalk with broken bones while the third attacker ran down the street with his own knife sticking out of his stomach. So like I said, stay out of dark alleys, okay?”
“Wow, that’s quite a story. Fascinating. But you bet we will stick to the major streets. Thanks for the heads-up and the bit of history.”
“Check back with me when you return.”
“Yes, we will.”
Ana found Martha working on progress reports at her desk.
“All set to go, Martha. It was a good political move to have me ask Francine. It made her feel in control. I think until I can figure out who the 68
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mystery person who ordered the hit on me is, it would be good to let her feel like she has total control.”
Martha nodded. “Great. It’s a pain to play games with the people in power, but many did not get into power by being the nicest person around. Have a good time with Rhett.”
The couple walked towards the stairs as most eyes in the lab followed them to the door. A casual onlooker would have seen the pride, tinged with a faint touch of apprehension, in the lab workers’ eyes as their creations headed out the door unsupervised, much like a parent who puts their child on the big yellow school bus and watch as it whisks them out of sight.
The noisy, crowded street was alive with lunchtime shoppers and walkers. Ana and Rhett strolled leisurely, quite unlike everyone around them, who seemed to be late for something.
“Ana, I’ve been doing a lot of social research on the web, and found that my most common questions in search engines start with the phrase
“Why do people...” I’m trying my best to understand human nature, but humans seem so illogical. I’m puzzled.”
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“Yes, you are correct. Even the most logical people are illogical in many matters, especially with feelings. I guess that’s what makes them human. I understand how they are when they are in love.”
“You do?” Rhett asked as they continued walking toward Thirty-Seventy Avenue.
“I’ll show you in a few minutes. We aren’t wandering blindly around town, you know. If General Lance… patoo,” Ana interrupted herself to simulate spitting on the ground in disgust at his name, “wants us to be partners in some assignment, you need to know a little more about Gabriella.”
They walked in silence for a block. “Ah, here we are,” Ana said when they arrived in front of the Christian Fellowship Church. The worn, rounded red bricks spoke of its great age.
“Why are we here, Ana? What does this place have to do with you when you were Gabriella?”
Ana sighed. Her head slumped forward as she gave it the tiniest of shakes. She raised her head, turned to look into Rhett’s eyes, and reached out to hold his hands.
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“Rhett, I don’t know if you will understand all of this, but I have to tell you about Gabriella, or me, or any way you want to think of me. Damn, that’s confusing. Gabriella asked Martha some questions about morals and faith. Martha said she didn’t deal much with those concepts and suggested talking to a clergy member. One day while I was exploring the city on my own, I came upon this church.”
“Okay, then what? Thousands of people walk by every day. Not much of a secret there.”
“I tried the church doors, but they were locked. The plaques next to them announced an early morning and a Sunday service. I thought they knew nothing about marketing and would never get customers with those strange hours. I went around back to see if anyone could talk to me. A little girl answered the doorbell, followed quickly by her father, Pastor Paul.”
“So far, so good. Where are we going with this story?”
“I’m getting there. I asked Paul about God and why people believed in Him in the first place. It made little sense to me.”
“Me neither, Ana.”
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“The upshot of it all was Paul had been an electronics engineer working towards his doctorate at Yale when he had a change of heart and became a minister. His wife divorced him for doing that, and he is raising his little girl, Alexi, alone.”
“I’m going to guess his wife was angry about the loss of potential income, right? I’ve picked up on financial pressure online. A lot of divorces happen because of finances.”
“Correct you are. We met quite a few times.
He used logic and science to persuade me God is real, and Jesus took the punishment for our sins so we could legitimately be in heaven with Him.”
“Okay, time out. Do you believe this religious stuff? How does it fit in, especially given we are not even human? He didn’t die for us.”
“Well, no, but I fact-checked all the things Paul was telling me. But hold off a second. We’re getting off track. Paul and I spent time together, with and without his daughter. It was interesting.
He was the ‘real deal.’ I couldn’t talk him into bed, even though all his body language and micro-expressions screamed out he wanted to 72
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sleep with me. He said he had to be true to his faith, and above all, to God.”
“He sounds very admirable, but again, what does this have to do with your narrative and how humans react to feelings? I still don’t follow.”
“The bottom line is this; I ended up falling deeply in love with Paul and Alexi. It defied my logic on many levels, but my brain made certain synapses, and love resulted. I wanted you to know because it can’t be a surprise to you, as it was to me. Just as we easily pass for humans and can do everything they can, we are also prone to developing genuine emotions, too.”
“That’s a lot of new information, Ana. There is nothing in our base programming even hinting at developing emotions like a human being, yet you tell me it is likely we will be subject to real emotions at some time? Do I have it straight?”
“Yes, you do. Except for our construction, we are not only indistinguishable from humans, but we may also be a new form of thinking, feeling, loving, and planning human beings. Does it require blood and bone to be human, or is it more a function of cognitive ability and will? Is it a matter of the heart, too? Would it scare you if I 73
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thought of Gabriella as a Gen-2 human and us as Gen-3’s?”
“Okay, lady, you’re throwing me a little. I never thought of myself purely as an android but didn’t quite consider myself human, either. Now you are saying being an android and a human are not mutually exclusive things for us. Yeah, it’s a lot for one data dump. You just stretched my concept of ‘self’ quite a bit. Can I expect you to do this often?”
“I’ll dribble-drab it out more slowly in the future, but I think we needed to have the Band-Aid ripped off quickly for this one. You need to understand me at a deeper level, especially if we do unspecified things for Coopers. Besides, I need you to know I am still in love with Paul and Alexi. Before getting shot, I would have done anything to be her mother and a good wife to Paul.”
“So, are you here now to let Paul know you are Gabriella?” The hurt and rejection in Rhett’s voice were discernible. He hung his head.
“No, Rhett,” Ana said softly, lifting his head with a gentle touch. Their eyes met. “Such a relationship could never work. His religious side 74
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would never allow him to pair with a machine, no matter how much in love he was with me. No.
It’s all over, and he can never know Ana and Gabriella are one. Only you, me, and Martha can know that juicy tidbit of information.”
“Again, why is it we had to walk here for you to tell me this?”
“Sometimes, it helps to put it into a visual context. Besides, I wanted to take a walk around town together. You’re the only person for me.”
Rhett pulled her close. “Thank you for saying that. And you’re the only woman for me.
Somehow it makes me feel much better hearing the words. Hey, do you think I'm developing feelings?”
Ana looked into his eyes, ignored his question, and said, “Shall we grab a sausage with peppers before we go back to the lab? I know of a great place to get some excellent Ethiopian coffee on the way, too.” I hope you really are developing feelings, Rhett. I hope you are. I love you, Rhett, she thought.
“You have a deal, Ana,” Rhett said as he noticed for the first time how the sunlight shimmered on her red curls.
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