Adam 2.0

"And the LORD God said, 'The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever.'"
--Genesis 3:22


When I walked into Eden Laboratories the next day, Will was lying dead on the floor.

A perfect halo of crimson red flowed freely from his head and onto the once immaculate white linoleum. Police officers had the area surrounded and were swarming around the body with cameras and sample kits like a nest of wasps. Eden was in complete chaos.

I stopped dead in my tracks when I saw the body on the floor of the main hall, my bag dropping to the floor beside me in a rough thud. A flood of thoughts raced through my head. What had happened this morning? Was it a murder? Was it suicide? Where was the rest of the staff and where the hell was Adam?

Adam. My heart sunk. I knew where he was.

I pushed past the swarm of officers among protests of "Miss, you can't come through here! It's a police area!" and "Can't you read the goddamn tape, lady? Do not cross!"

"I'm Dr. Kaling's daughter and I demand to see where you've taken Adam." I said through my teeth.

"Oh, really?" replied a particularly cocky officer, a sneer on his face. "Well, in case you haven't noticed, Miss Kaling, there's a dead guy on the floor so I can't just have you waltzing around. And I especially can't have you running around with that killer robot."

"He's not a killer!" I cried, reflexively. I knew this was coming. I knew they were going to pin this on Adam somehow, because that was the easy thing to do. And if they take him away, I will never find my father.

"Funny," the moronic blue-suit replied. "That's what he keeps saying too. Are you sure you're not his accomplice? I imagine it must be hard for him to bludgeon a man to death without some kind of assistance."

I was fuming. My fingers curling into fists. Of course, I couldn't actually punch a police officer but I really wanted to. I wanted to scream and cuss in his face and stomp on his feet and yell that he didn't know what the hell he was doing and that I had lost too much of my father already to let him get away again.

"It's alright, Castor." a deep voice from behind me said, just as I was about to reach my limit of controlling my rage. "I'll take care of her."

The idiot officer seemed surprised by whoever was standing behind me and replied with a curt, "Of course, sir." and then returned to inspecting the body on the floor, leaving me in peace.

I turned around to face the stranger and was met with a gigantic pole of a man, built like a rock, towering over me. He couldn't have been much older than me but he had shiny golden badge on his left breast pocket that claimed he was ranked higher than the other officers.

"I'm Titus." He said, smiling, stretching out his hand. "And you're Pandora, am I right?" He asked, not bothering to let me introduce myself. But I figured he probably knew a lot about me already.

"Yes...What happened here?"

"Well..." He sighed, trailing off and leading me into a secluded corner where no one could hear our conversation. "There's been a murder, obviously. The call came from Adam this morning. There are no witnesses, except that robot, if you can even count him. And there's no sign of breaking and entering. All in all, it sounds pretty bad for that robot."

The frown on my face deepened and I stared at him with suspicion. "What are you saying exactly? You don't honestly believe that Adam killed him do you? Why would he do such a thing? He's not even allowed to leave his room without permission."

"That's where things get a little fuzzy," he explained to me, his eyes moving distractedly to the room behind me. "See, from the reports the staff has on him, Adam is not allowed to leave the room except in the case of an emergency. The original prototype never had this particular feature, but after the fire, the staff decided it was best if they upgraded him to know when there was an emergency and how to stop it."

"So that's your amazing theory, then?" I hissed at him. I wasn't exactly angry at him in particular, but I figured he was a good vent to thrust my anger into at the time. "You're too stupid and lazy to find the real killer so you're just going to say that Adam the psychotic and violent robot got angry at Will and left his room to bludgeon him to death?"

I expected Titus to retaliate with a vehement argument. But he just stood there, smiling at me as if I'd proposed the most amusing story.

"I understand you're angry. I can see you're just as protective of that robot as your father was."

"Well, it just doesn't make any---wait, you knew my father?" The anger in my voice deflated completely and I hoped that he couldn't hear the tint of desperation in it.

"I didn't know him personally of course, but I knew of him. We got calls from here quite a number of times from the riots and protests and had to come over to get things under control."--here he scrutinized my face for a moment--"You have eyes just like him."

I nervously giggled to stop the tears that were threatening to fall. It occurred to me what a demented and hormonal adolescent I must of seemed to him at the moment---cheeks aflame in a storm of red, eyes glassy and ready to pour, my eyebrows were unsure whether to furrow in anger or sink in sorrow and were now in this strange limbo playing see-saw on my face.

"Maybe..." he started, holding me in his glance once more. "Maybe you'd like to go home? I don't think this is the best place for you to be right now. I mean, there's a man murdered on the floor. You've had enough to deal with already this past two weeks, haven't you?"

He was referring to my father's death. Everyone spoke about it this way, as if they were walking on a glass floor. They could never bring themselves to say the word: death. Instead, they uttered vague sentences alluding to this death and/or said poetic euphemisms fit for Nobel prizes like "I'm sorry that your father has departed". Departed? Departed where exactly?

They say it as if he will return one day from wherever it is that he "departed" to. And I can't stand all this literary elusiveness. The only thing that mattered to me at the moment was making sure they didn't break Adam into little pieces or somehow manage to destroy his memories.

"So what are you going to do with him?" I tried asking, casually. My uncharacteristically even tone didn't get past Titus, however. He looked at me with concern, seeing my vulnerability at the present moment as an invitation to place both his hands around my shoulders assuredly.

"Look, Miss. Kaling. We have everything under control. We're checking Adam's memory log to see what he happened to record of the incident. And as soon as we have the evidence we need to pin the murderer, we'll let him go."

"Okay..." I said, sounding unconvinced, although I hoped Titus couldn't sense this betrayal in my voice either. But he was awfully perceptive like that. "Can I see him?"

"Not now." He said, pulling away and sticking his hands in his pockets. I noticed the pistol fit snugly in his belt. "I think it's best if you went home and took some rest. You don't need to see anymore of this, do you? One of my men can give you a lift to your--"

"No, it's alright. I'll walk." I blurted quickly. I just needed to get away from him and find where they were keeping Adam without him noticing. "I could use the fresh air anyway."

I turned and made like I was going for the exit until I saw him turn and leave in the direction of the body on the floor. I had seen him eye the door behind me several times while we were talking and it had caught my interest. It occurred to me that maybe they were interrogating Adam in there. I snuck back to the hall and perched on my toes to see though the tiny square window on the door.

Inside, just as I had suspected was Adam, sitting in front of a long table used to conference meetings. His head was drooping slightly and his eyes were shut. They had powered him down. There was a cop standing behind him, poking and probing at the back of his neck where I assumed most of the memory was stored. The cop was holding a small chip in his free hand, carelessly.

One of the lab staff was beside him and seemed to be saying something nervously, staring at the chip and making a small cradle with his hands. Obviously, he was just as nervous as I was that the cop was just going to drop that microchip and break it on the floor. I couldn't take it anymore. It was like he was holding my father in his hands and was carelessly tossing him back and forth like a toy.

I was sure that the chip was not the memory log--I recall it was a much larger part made of a metallic silver semi-conductor. But nonetheless, I didn't like watching this grubby fingered cop poking around in Adam's hardware like he was just someone's old laptop. I didn't like the possibility that he could break something and then just like that---poof, my father would be gone in a nanosecond.

The cop looked up for a moment and I quickly ducked down from view, my breath caught in my throat. I didn't know if he'd seen me, but I didn't care. I was suddenly possessed with an almost maternal protectiveness that I'd never quite had before.

Even if they did find the footage he recorded and even if they did find that Adam was innocent (which I was 99.9% sure of), there was the sickening feeling in my chest that they were still going to destroy him somehow. Maybe it was because of the public's distrust in Adam's abilities. Some of them saw him as a danger, a threat to human life. I didn't understand this of course. Anyone who had actually met Adam and spent time with him would know that accusation was absolutely ridiculous and ignorant. But the truth still existed: every great scientific accomplishment in history, no matter how successful and revolutionary, had all been questioned, condemned, and hated at one point.

And at this particular moment of history, it was Adam, the life-mimicking amazing robot that was being tossed into the fire. I knew regardless of what they found on that memory log, they were out to destroy him. What jury would unanimously favour his innocence? Would he even get a lawyer? Would he even have a right to a fair trial? He wasn't even human and therefore was not entitled to any human rights whatsoever. They treat all the robots in this country like trash. They would see Adam as no different.

I had never really had a goal in my life; no cause that I had felt especially passionate about. But there it was, right in front of me, defined and crystal clear:

I had to protect Adam's memory of my father. I had to kidnap Adam and get him the hell away from here.

I hesitated, only for a brief moment, and then leapt forward and pulled the fire alarm. A rain of water sprinkled automatically from the ceiling and the rest of Eden Laboratories was engulfed in a chaotic hell.