The Clockwork Maze 6:Computed Compassion

(From the viewpoint of Robert Telmar)



Subject: P014

Designation: Tom Jeffrey

Family: Jeffrey

Mother: Amanda Jeffrey (Deceased)

Father: Lewis Jeffry (Deceased)

Species: Deltapilot

Breed: Bleached

Blood Type: O+

Age: 19

Modification Method: Photonic Genetic Engineering

SPECIALLY SELECTED FOR TESTING BY ISAAC NOLAND

Estimated Chance Of Survival: 8.29%









Whilst reading his details, I felt a totally childish feeling welling up inside me. I could only sit there in a quadrupedal position as I felt tears forming in my eyes. Tom saw this and attempted to comfort me.

"Hey, what's the matter?" he said in a voice that I found more than slightly irritating.

"WHAT THE HELL!" I screamed in disbelief at his incredibly stupid question."I'm a fucking cat that's not meant to remember being anything else, but I do!" I yelled, making him flinch (in hind sight, I would have chuckled at the prospect of a small cat making a beast larger than a man flinch but hey, I was hysterical)

"They are meant to kill me, or at least finish what they started, but they did neither...WHY!?" I yelled once again, my voice rising in pitch.

"I was meant to be enjoying the best birthday of my life with my friends and family all night long, but I'm here in a test I never agreed to take, with company I don't want, with a god damn briefcase that is telling me that the BASTARD beside me is more than likely to proceed, leaving my bloodied corpse in one of the many thousands of halls in this fucking place!!!" I suddenly collapsed, my anger spent, my breath wasted. As I lay there, panting feebly, the rage in my veins became shame for both what I had said and the reason I'd said it. The truth was, I felt inferior to the massive, powerful creature beside me (which, of course, I was) and a pathetic phrase fought in my throat to break free. That phrase was "It's just not fair!".

    My rapid gasps for breath gradually turned into choked sobs. I lay there on the floor of the soulless white corridor. Weeping over the life which had cruelly been snatched away from me by a man that was supposed to care for me.

"I JUST WANT TO DIE!!!!" I wailed to the world.



                                                                                ***





(From the point of view of Dr. Fredrickson)

      That was all I needed to here.

"You heard the boy!" I called out to the  other scientists in the room "Kill him!"

    There was a sudden flurry of activity as my staff huddled around a computer terminal and the room was suddenly alive with the sound of the tapping of keys.

"Er...sir?"

    I turned, the one who had addressed me was a scrawny young fellow of great influence. His name was Jack Noland.

"Yes, Dr. Noland?" I responded politely.

"There's an error sir." he said nervously.

    I ran over to the main terminal as did many of the rooms occupants and sure enough, there on the screen, in large red letters: ERROR. I spoke into the microphone.

"Explain error."

[YOUR DECISION GOES AGAINST MY PRIOR PROGRAMMING]

    I changed the destination of the microphone.

"I'd like to have some technicians up here ASAP!"



                                                                                    ***



(From the viewpoint of Robert Telmar)

    I lay in a sort of foetal position, gurgling until I felt a massive hand glide across the fur on my side. I looked up at Tom, and smiled. It was the first instance of forgiveness that I had encountered in this unholy labyrinth.

"Lets get going." I whispered.

    We got started down the corridor. As I walked, I noticed something. What I noticed wasn't obvious, in fact, for the first ten minutes I couldn't even tell what I had noticed. But as we wandered through the corridor, it became increasingly obvious. What I had noticed was a slight difference in gravity, a marginal difference in my contact with the floor. This feeling was proven by what we saw next, a well dressed, decapitated body lay, decaying, on the ceiling. A dry puddle of blood had, at some point, spread out from the corpse.

"Tom?" I whispered to my new friend who was currently gaping in horror at the corpse.

"Y...yeah?" he stammered in response.

"Hold that briefcase above your head please." I requested in a voice that sounded surer than I felt.

"Ok." he murmured vacantly and held up the briefcase. As soon as the case crossed the half way point between the ceiling and the floor, the briefcase swung upward. Tom was almost so shocked by this action that he almost dropped it. He yanked it back down where gravity returned it to its original state.

"So, up and down don't really matter in this place. That might prove useful at some point..." I pondered to myself.

"What?" he asked in a detached voice, still staring in awe at the ceiling.

"Oh! It's nothing, I was just thinking that knowing that up can be down in here might be useful." I explained

"I think that it's more likely to prove confusing." he retorted.

"Well, anyway. Shall we try that door?" I enquired, motioning toward the door to my right. "We may as well, it looks the same as all the others."

    Tom pulled the handle of the door and a series of clicks echoed from the confines of the door before it opened, with a sound similar to that of a fridge door opening, but instead of another room, there was a second door beyond the open one. The second door was not, in fact, white like the others I'd seen. This door was made of metal and looked like the door to a bank vault. In the center of the metallic bulkhead, there was a familiar green gelatinous platform, above this there was a plaque which read: Patience Is A Virtue.

    With a small glance at Tom, I placed my paw against the platform. My paw sank through the gel instantly and met with a metal surface. I yelped when an iris of metal closed around my wrist. An arrow lit up above the pad that directed me to turn my paw anticlockwise. I did as I had been told and felt the metal surface turn like a switch. I heard the sound of many locks opening around the edge of the door before it finally opened slowly.

    Within the room beyond, there was a sleeping woman of around ninety-seven. She was apparently integrated into the system with many cables and wires coming from the ceiling buried in her flesh in various places, she was also in some sort of bracket that held the cables in place. Within her wrinkled hands, she held an old fashioned musket. To one side of her, there was an old, dead potted plant, to the other, there was an axe mounted on a pedestal. In front of all three of them was a large ornate vase, also on a pedestal. The room itself was similar to the one in which I had met tom except for the fact that the door on the opposite side of the room was locked with an almost comically large lock and the door that we had just entered through had no handle.

      Just as this thought crossed my mind, the door behind us slammed shut, giving Tom and I a fright and jolting the old woman from her slumber. She slowly raised her head to a chorus of locks clicking shut and the moment she saw us, she screamed,

"GET OUT OF MY HOUSE!!!"

"But,ma'am, we're not in my house." I attempted to reason with her.

"BEAST!!!" she screeched at me before raising the gun and shooting.

    I narrowly avoided the blast which caused the miscellaneous substance that the walls consisted of to crack. As I ran the length of the room, I realised that the old woman wouldn't give up, she was obviously being manipulated by the many mechanical capillaries which had been spliced into her system.

"Robert!" Tom yelled from the other side of the room causing the crone to wheel around and take aim at him.

"What?!" I responded, cringing as another shot rebounded off the walls.

"I think that we have to kill her!" he shouted as he reached the corner "With the axe!"

"If that is true, why did they give us the plant and the vase!" I reasoned as we now began to approach each other.

"HOOLIGANS!!!" the hag roared at neither one of us in particular.

    A thought occurred to me as Tom and I passed each other at the locked door. The thought in question was so random that,at first, I was almost sure that it was too insane to work, even if it did work, it wouldn't get us out of this situation but seeing as this was an insane place, I thought maybe an insane idea would work. Allowing reflexes to take over, I meandered my way around the old witches shots and made my way to the pedestal with the vase on it. When I got there, I jumped into the air, landing on the pedestal and knocking the vase over.

    The liquid that poured out of the vase was not water as I had assumed, it was blood. The thick fluid poured into the pot and as the shrivelled roots were bathed in the liquid, the stem became green, the leaves unfolded and the entire plant began to grow before my very eyes. As I watched this miraculous sight, an explosion filled the room

    I couldn't even turn my head before the shot penetrated my leg, spinning me off of the pedestal and smashing me against the wall. As I fell, I was hit in the face by a second shot but as this happened, a long metal cylinder rose from the floor and flashed a bizarre  light at me. As the shrapnel hit me, there was a ripple of pain that spread from my temple to the back of my skull. There was a flash in which I saw all of my life but then, everything faded into black and I, Robert Telmar, breathed my last.



                                                                                        ***



(From the viewpoint of Dr. Fredrickson)

    The technicians had checked the equipment but found no problem. It didn't matter now. As I watched, Mrs. Darrel fired a shot straight through the boys right knee cap. Several members of my staff cringed as they saw the yellow fluid explode from the cats severed leg as he was sent flying into a wall.

"It's time for kitty to die" I breathed and a malicious grin spread across my face.

      Literally between the moment the second shot was fired and the moment the shrapnel made contact, the screen went black and there was a chorus of groans from the crowd. A message appeared on the monitor.

[YOU LACK COMPASSION]

"So?" I enquired, raising an eyebrow.

[WHEN RESEARCHERS LOSE THEIR COMPASSION, IT IS MY DUTY TO TAKE ACTION]

"What sort of action?" I asked nervously, noting several researchers shifting uncomfortably.

[WHEN HUMANS LOSE THEIR ABILITY TO FEEL PITY, THEY LOSE THEIR RIGHT TO BE HUMAN]

    And with that, the walls, ceiling and floor opened up to reveal several lines of silver circles. The circles began to flash in sequence and as they began to flash, I felt my body disintegrate.











                                                                              To Be Continued