Jessie turned toward Stevie. “How did you pull that off? Do you have a mercenary squad on speed dial?”
Stevie smiled. “Nah, not my crowd.”
“Well, that means either you came armed with automatic weapons and a grenade launcher, or you’re a martial arts prodigy.”
“Neither of the above.” She exchanged a glance with Lynch and then gave him a wink. “Though I did come armed with something else.”
Kendra cocked her head. “Like what?”
Lynch smiled. “You’re about to find out.”
There was rustling outside the door of the cabin. Kendra and Jessie both jumped to their feet and turned warily toward the door.
“It’s okay,” Stevie said quietly. “Don’t be alarmed.”
Kendra gave her a doubtful look, then turned back to the cabin’s entrance. The door swung open, and a tall figure in a buttoned-up trench coat, fedora hat, and ski mask stepped inside and froze when he caught sight of them.
After that first glance, Kendra just stared in disbelief. Then she had to start over and slowly and meticulously look the figure up and down. She stopped when she got to the feet, which seemed to be made from the same metallic material as the hand that she had found. She looked back up toward the face, where the eyes glowed blue behind a pair of sunglasses. She drew a deep breath “Oh, my God. It’s the freaking Terminator.”
“Not a Terminator at all,” Lynch said quietly. “Meet Archie.”
Kendra and Jessie stared at the imposing figure for a long moment, then Stevie walked over and pulled the hat and ski mask from its head.
The cranium was also silver and metallic, but the face held smooth humanlike contours with eye sockets that indented only slightly. There was no mouth, and only a slight bump where the nose would have been.
Stevie smiled at the shocked look on their faces. “Archie, say hello to our guests.”
“Hello,” the robot said in a soothing male voice. “I am exceptionally pleased to meet you.”
Kendra looked toward Stevie. “Am I supposed to respond to this . . . thing?”
“Do whatever you want. Speak to it the same way you would speak to anyone else. He’ll understand and reply.”
Kendra nodded. “Hello, Archie. I’m Kendra.”
“I perceive a sudden increase in your pulse rate, Kendra. I apologize if my presence is causing you any anxiety.” The figure’s speech was accompanied by hand motions that were distinctly . . . human, Kendra thought.
“Anxietyisn’t quite the word for it. I don’t know if there isa word for what I’m feeling right now.” She turned to Lynch. “What the hell?”
“That was my first reaction,” Lynch said. “But he grows on you.”
“Don’t you mean ‘it’?”
“I make the same mistake all the time,” Stevie said. “I realize it’s bad form. But I look at Archie as a friend, and I have problems calling a friend ‘it.’ It sounds kind of . . . cold. So most of the time I just do what comes naturally. I suggest you do the same. It works for me.” She smiled proudly at the robot. “And after all, I’m the one who built Archie.”
Jessie stepped forward and inspected Archie more closely.
“You built it how?”
“One piece at a time.”
“Yourself?” Kendra said, still not quite believing it.
Stevie nodded. “His brain and nervous system were based on the AI protocol I designed and patented a couple of years ago. It’s not all that different from the phone AI assistant most of us carry in our pockets, or on kitchen countertops in our homes. They’re already pretty capable of carrying on a conversation, and mine is just an extension of that.”
Kendra pointed to the figure standing in front of her. “You’re oversimplifying. That’s nothing like this.”
“Sure it is. People are having conversations and even therapy sessions from AI partners online that look incredibly lifelike. They’re already almost indistinguishable from humans. Anyway, my father studies the science of human motion, and he’s helped design prosthetic arms, legs, and pretty much anything else that can go missing on the body. I decided I wanted to take what I’vealready been doing in the virtual world and bring it to the real world.”
