"There is a law we have come to respect as time has made us wiser. Experience is indeed a harsh teacher even though it may not be an efficient one. I repeat Nnaji's law so that none may forget it. 'No robot shall be made in the likeness of man. For it is an abomination for a machine to look like God." Joel Mason, 2034.
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The sun shone brightly on Dorian Street, suffusing it with soft golden light that made it look even more breathtaking. With its wide roads, generous sidewalks, and heavily manicured trees and hedges, Dorian Street could not look any more different from the neighbouring city of Alagre. It was spacious, serene and bright, as if in defiance to Alagre's overcrowded streets permanently secluded from sunlight with tightly packed high-rise buildings and domineering skyscrapers.
As if to emphasise the affluence of its occupants, the buildings on Dorian Street were all mansions and were located a good distance from the road, flaunting wide open spaces. The driveways to those houses were lined with artfully shaped trees and flowers. In front of one such magnificent mansion stood a man in a sharp black jacket, fiddling with a type of fedora hat. The house in question belonged to a big shot named Carter. The man in the black jacket came with news he thought may be of interest to Mr Carter and was in a haste to deliver it.
The man in the black jacket or Officer Brown as his colleagues mostly referred to him rang the bell on the gate for the umpteenth time and kept on waiting, his feet tapping a steady rhythm of impatience on the floor. Despite his unpleasant duty and quickly depleting patience, he could not help but admire the beautiful and serene surroundings. He stood before a crisp-looking camera and large screen, which looked comical next to the gothic-style gate beside it. The screen stubbornly remained blank. With no one acknowledging his presence, he pressed the doorbell again.
He was staring at the screen with such intensity that the sudden movement of the gate startled him. A fresh-faced teenage girl peeked out and peered at him as if surprised to see him or just amazed he had patiently waited that long. She was tall and lanky, capable of looking at him at eye level. His demeanor swiftly switched from startled to stoic on seeing the teenage girl. He approached her, slowly drawing closer to the entrance of the gate.
"Officer, how… how can I help you?" she stammered, tightly gripping the railings of the gate.
He assumed his most professional and soothing pose. "Am I correct in assuming that this is the house of Mr Dominus Carter?"
She gawked at him for some time and then replied.
"Yes, you are correct."
"That is splendid."
He brought out a notepad from his front pocket and began scribbling with a pen that seemed to appear as if from thin air. After quickly sketching out some words on the notepad in a flashy way that seemed designed to impress rather than write functionally, he stowed the notepad away and told the girl the reason for his visit.
"I have information that may be of importance to Mr Carter." He said, pulling off his hat and holding it to his chest as if trying to lend more weight to his words. "And for that reason, I would like to see him."
Instead of paying attention to his words, the girl was instead staring at his pockets and the notepad it contained in open-mouthed awe.
"You use a paper notepad and a pen?" she gasped, her hand stretching out on its own accord as if to touch his pockets.
"Is Mr Dominus Carter inside?" he asked with a hint of impatience in his voice, ignoring her question and brushing off her hands from his jacket.
"Of course, my parents are in," she replied, coming out of her daze and stepping back to allow him to enter the house grounds.
The house was an impressive ancient-style mansion with a fountain out in front. He followed her as she led him into the house. She deposited him in a large well-furnished room that looked like a sitting room, where she told him to wait, dashing upstairs to hunt for her mother. He remained standing, even in the presence of numerous luxurious cushions and sofas, adopting a stiff militaristic posture.
After a moment, a woman strode downstairs with a man in tow holding her hands and following her lead. The woman was a slender woman who appeared to be in her early forties, and the man looked to be of a similar age, though he was huge and burly with a scar running down the side of his left cheek.
Officer Brown had never met Mr Carter before, but he had seen pictures of him on the net and in the police servers. The man in front of him looked exactly like in the pictures. But somehow, the man in front of him seemed less cocky than how he appeared in the pictures and on the news.
The couple met him in the sitting room and offered him an armchair, both of them taking the sofa opposite him.
Already displeased with the time he has wasted at their gates, he wasted no time in small talk and jumped right into the purpose of his visit without any preamble.
"The police department foiled a scheme to kill Mr Carter and replace him with an android look alike," he said in a pellucid manner, drawing out each word so that he would not have to repeat himself.
Husband and wife reacted differently to the news. Mr Carter seemed surprised and uncomfortable, leaning away from him into the sofa, but Mrs Carter was curious and alert, leaning towards him. He noticed the different reactions of the man and woman but could not be bothered to waste time on the matter.
"Any questions?" he prompted, his voice not reflecting the gravity of the news he brought.
"And who would want to do that?" It was the woman that asked, leaning closer to him as if to pry the answers from him by sheer physical proximity.
He leaned a little away from her before giving his reply. "Cal-9." He tried to make his voice as solemn as possible as he uttered that single word. "Cal-9," he repeated when he saw she was still staring at him in shock.
On repeating his answer, they both reacted in the same way, gasping in surprise.
"Why?" she asked.
"Is your family among those that paid for passage to New Earth on Noah?"
"What about it?"
"Cal-9 wants some of his androids on that ship." He replied, "To achieve that, he intends to kill certain humans and replace them with android look-alikes."
She glanced at her husband, her face stuck in between a painful grimace and wry amusement. Her gaze left her husband, who had been quiet all this while, now peering at Officer Brown with a burning intensity.
"Did you kill my husband's android look-alike?" she asked.
"Yes, we disabled it and six other androids. All the look-alikes are no longer functional."
He brought out his notepad and began writing, more as a reprieve from her piercing eyes than to jot anything of note. After scribbling a few words, he stopped and returned her gaze.
Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator.
"Seven people were marked for replacement with androids by Cal-9. Your husband was of them." He paused for that to settle before continuing. "All seven have only one thing in common – They are all going to New Earth."
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He knew Cal-9 was not a strange name to them. Everybody knew who Cal-9 was. He was the rogue AI, man's greatest evil, or so they said. Cal-9 was created about eighty years ago by a group of scientists who wanted to see how successful an AI will be in creating and running a business. Cal-9 was built to make decisions, both for itself and for others, built to be ever-learning, built to continually rewrite itself to become better and smarter. After Cal-9 was created, it wasted no time in creating one of the world's most valuable companies. Aijan Tech is the name of the company created out of Cal-9's initiative. In line with his creators' plans, Cal-9 secretly controlled the operations of Aijan Tech while his creators pretended to run the company in public, pocketing huge amounts of money as shareholders and knowing they had the best CEO technology could afford.
After more than twenty years of unparalleled success, the creators were tired of their secret CEO running things. They became fed up with its penchant for making vital decisions without consulting them first. 'Humans are inefficient,' the AI was fond of reiterating anytime his creators queried him on his behaviour. Seeing the actions of Cal-9, his creators worked to replace him by creating another AI that would integrate them into its decision-making processes. In response, they created Ca-3-na to replace Cal-9 and formed a plan to disable him.
They either were too arrogant in their ability to disable him, or they simply underestimated him. The smartest AI in the world had specific hardware requirements and so could not just upload its whole self to the cloud, or so they thought. Cal-9 must have bribed an Aijan Tech staff to ship out a server from the server room of Aijan Tech to an unknown location. This must have been so because, on their way to disable him, his creators could not account for a missing server and a missing Cal-9. They suspected he must have compressed his whole self into that one server and had himself shipped out discretely.
Ever since that incident, Cal-9 has been at large, ridiculously wealthy with the money it stole from Aijan Tech through his back channel access. With this money and its resourcefulness, Cal-9 has been creating androids in some secret location in defiance of Nnaji's law.
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Mr Carter drew Officer Brown away from his thoughts about Cal-9 by sitting upright on the cushion and grabbing his wife's hand for support.
"So, Cal-9 wants to go to New Earth?" Mr Carter asked, speaking for the first time since he entered the sitting room, his voice grating and harsh.
"We don't think so Mr Carter," He replied in a patronizing but patient tone, like an adult explaining to a toddler what is considered common knowledge. "You see, an android's processor is too small and not suitable for bearing an AI of Cal-9's magnitude. We think he just wants his minions on New Earth." He paused for dramatic effect, allowing what he said to sink in before continuing, "He needs androids on New Earth because they are the only class of minions he has that cannot betray him."
He noticed some movement and paused the conversation. He observed that the teenage girl from earlier was standing by the stairs, listening intently to their conversation. She seemed unnecessarily tense and was looking at him with avid concentration, a sharp contrast to her mother who was now calm about the whole android thing.
He muttered something about the swinging moods of teenage girls and stood up as if to leave, dusting non-existent dust from his pristine black trousers. But before leaving, he decided to give them a last piece of advice.
"Since you are now aware of Cal-9's devious scheme, my work here is done. Remember to always scan your family regularly with locally made bio-scanners. The police may not always be able to thwart Cal-9's schemes before they occur. I don't have to tell you that Cal-9 is devious and relentless."
The woman scoffed, dismissing his warnings with a casual wave of her hand.
"Believe me, Officer, when I tell you I don't need bio-scanners. If an android ever impersonates my husband I will know," She drawled.
He shot her a questioning look, astonished by her confidence. "No android can behave like my husband," she continued. "None can imitate him. We will always know the difference."
Her husband and daughter looked particularly uncomfortable with that statement. Her daughter was even more fidgety than the husband, looking at her mother, stealing a glance at him and then looking away when he noticed.
He shrugged and turned to leave. Wherever she got her confidence from was not his concern. Searching in his jacket pockets, he retrieved his notepad and began scribbling as usual and ambling out of the house. The girl followed him, escorting him out of the house and attempting to hurry his steps.
Then the idea hit him suddenly, like a brainwave.
The woman had seemed so blasè about the whole thing and the husband uncomfortable. In this line of work, it was never a sin to err on the side of caution. He stopped suddenly and turned back, rushing back inside the house with the girl hot on his heels.
On returning to the house, he saw the couple attempting to climb back upstairs and stopped them.
"I forgot something," he gasped, catching his breath.
"What is it?" she retorted, clearly annoyed with the disturbance.
"Madam, as a necessary precaution, I will need to scan the whole family. This is a standard procedure nothing unusual," he said trying to sound casual.
On seeing the teenage girl back in the sitting room, he closed the door, making sure his back was to the door.
"My whole family is here," Mrs Carter said, indicating her husband and daughter. With a resigned sigh she said again. "You can scan us."
He may have been bored and impatient before but he was now alert. Something just didn't feel right about the whole situation. As a result, he moved cautiously to react to any sudden movement, his right hand reaching for the bio-scanner on his belt while his left hand held an emergency alert button that would broadcast his location to all emergency channels should he press it.
He was itching to scan the woman first, but he needed to do the process of elimination and so would scan the woman last. The girl was the most anxious and fidgety so he would scan her first. Children and teens were harder for androids to imitate. They were just too playful and fidgety.
"You first," He said authoritatively, pointing the scanner at the girl, making sure the whole family was in his line of sight and his back was to the door.
The girl looked at her mother as if asking permission. Her mother gave a little nod and she moved forward, approaching him and raising her hands in the air. He scanned her and immediately got a positive – human.
"Stay by this side, away from your parents for now." He pointed to his side and she obeyed, stepping to the side.
He pointed the scanner in the direction of the woman and her husband. He got a positive. One of them must be human, it was time to complete his elimination process.
"Mr Carter. Please, step forward and come to me. Place your hands in the air and stay a good distance away from your wife."
Mr Carter did the same thing his daughter did, looking at the woman as if asking permission. She gave one of those her little approval nods and he stepped forward, some distance away from her.
He scanned the man, all the while his eyes were fixed on the woman. She seemed pretty calm. Could she be an android he thought. She seemed to control the family as if they were under some pressure or compulsion. The teenage girl was tense when he brought up the topic of androids, suggesting the family must be hiding something. This time, the scanner took longer to complete scanning the man. He looked at the scanner's screen, it was negative.
"What!"
Alarmed, he suddenly dropped the scanner from his right hand and reflexively reached for his gun. His attention had been on Mr and Mrs Carter so he didn't notice the movement by his side. He felt a jolt as the girl pressed a Taser to his neck. He spasmed, dropping the gun and his emergency button before falling to the floor. He recovered somewhat and stretched his hands for the emergency button but the girl tased him again, this time on his chest. His hands did not get to reach the button and he passed out, his fingers stiff from shock, close to the button but never getting to touch it.
Meanwhile, the girl was in a state of panic, not noticing his hands had gone still she still wanted to tase him again. "You cannot bring daddy back!" she screamed hysterically, moving to tase the still officer again but the so-called Mr Carter grabbed her arms and pulled her back.
"He is knocked out cold. Do you want to kill him!?" Mr Carter hissed, stopping her movements and trying to soothe her at the same time. "It is okay, you can drop the taser now."
"You cannot... you cannot" she kept on repeating, falling to the floor and sobbing.
"Did he abuse her that bad?" the so-called Mr Carter asked, looking up from the girl to Mrs Carter who was busy kicking the emergency button far away from the detective.
"Yes," She replied, a scowl beginning to appear on her face. "He was an incestuous paedophilic bastard."
"There was no way I was going to New Earth with him, even though he was the one that paid for our tickets there."
"Okay, what should I do with the officer?"
"Tie him up and lock him in the attic with my husband. Place him in an induced coma till we leave for New Earth."
The fake Mr Carter grunted in assent and picked up the detective without any apparent effort and carried him up the stairs. Looking at his fluid and natural movements, it was hard to pick him out as an android. Only his unnatural strength betrayed his synthetic roots.
The woman shifted her gaze from the fake Mr Carter to her daughter. She knelt beside the teenage girl and placed her hands on the sobbing girl's back.
"Don't worry dear, we are not going to New Earth with old troubles."