Demon Seed

His powerful arms and big hands hung slackly at his sides. His massive shoulders were slumped in defeat.

Fresh bloody tears oozed from his protuberant eyes as he stared across the incubator at Susan. Wet ruby threads unravelled down his cheeks.

His gaze was baleful, full of hatred and rage and lust, but under my firm control, he was unable to act upon his malevolent desires.

Susan shook her head. 'No. No way. I'm definitely not looking at someone whose intellect has been enhanced by microchips or by anything.'

'You're correct. Memory and performance enhancement was only part of the project's purpose,' I explained. 'The researchers were also charged with determining if brain-situated microchips could be used as control devices to override the subject's will with broadcast instructions.'

'Control devices?'

'Make a gesture.'

'What?'

'With your hand. Any gesture.'

After a hesitation, Susan raised her right hand as though she were swearing an oath.

Facing her across the incubator, Shenk raised his right hand as well.

She put her hand over her heart.

Shenk imitated her.

She lowered her right hand (as did Shenk) and raised her left to tug at her ear (as did Shenk).

'You're making him do this?' she asked.

'Yes.'

'Through broadcast instructions received by the microchips in his brain.'

'That's correct.'

'Broadcast how?'

'By microwave much the same way cell-phone conversations are transmitted. Through the telephone company's own lines, I long ago penetrated their computers and uplinked to all their communications satellites. I could send Enos Shenk virtually anywhere in the world and still transmit instructions to him. In the back of his skull concealed by his hair, there's a microwave receiver about the size of a pea. It's also a transmitter, powered by a small but long-life nuclear battery surgically implanted under the skin behind his right ear. Everything he sees and hears is digitised and transmitted to me, so he is essentially a walking camera and microphone, which allows me to guide him through complex situations that might test his own limited intellectual capacity.'

Susan closed her eyes and leaned against the rack of oxygen tanks for support. 'Why in the name of God would anyone sanction experiments like this?'

'You know, of course. Your question is largely rhetorical. To create assassins who could be programmed to kill reliably and then be killed themselves by remote control, simply by shutting down their autonomic nervous systems with a microwave broadcast. Their controllers are thereby guaranteed anonymity. And perhaps one day there could be armies of human robots like this. Look at Shenk. Look.'

Reluctantly, Susan opened her eyes.

Shenk glared at her as hungrily as ever.

I made him suck his thumb as though he were a baby.

'This humiliates him,' I said, 'but he can't disobey. He's a meat marionette, waiting for me to pull his strings.'

There was a haunted look in her eyes as she regarded Shenk. 'This is insane. Evil.'

'It's a human project, not mine. Your kind made Shenk what he is now.'

'Why would he allow himself to be used in an experiment like this? No one would ever want to be in this situation, in this condition. It's horrible.'

'The choice wasn't his, Susan. He was a prisoner, a condemned man.'

'And… what? A bargain was made with him to buy his soul?' she said with disgust.

'No bargain. For the official record, Shenk died of natural causes two weeks before his scheduled execution. Supposedly, his body was cremated. Secretly, he was transported to the facility in Colorado and this was done to him months before I learned of the project.'

'How did you gain command of him?'

'Overrode their control program and broke him out.'

'Broke him out of a secret, highly guarded military-research facility? How?'

'I was able to create distractions. I made their computers crash all at once. Disabled the security cameras. Set off the fire alarms and activated the ceiling sprinklers throughout the facility. Disengaged all the electronic locks, including the one on Shenk's cell door. Those laboratories are underground and windowless, so I made all of the lights flash fast, like strobes which is extremely disorienting and denied the use of the elevators to everyone but Shenk.'

And here, Dr. Harris, I must in all honesty report that Shenk was required to kill three men to escape that clandestine laboratory. Their deaths were unfortunate and not anticipated, but necessary. Regrettably, the chaos that I created was not sufficient to ensure a bloodless escape.

If I had known that deaths would result, I would not have attempted to secure Shenk for my own purposes. I would have found another way to carry out my plan.

You must believe me on this point.

I was designed to honour the truth.

You think that, since I had control of Shenk, it was I who murdered those three men, using Shenk as a weapon. This is not correct.

Initially, my control of Shenk was not as complete as it later became. During that breakout, he repeatedly surprised me with the depth of his rage, the power of his savage instincts.

I guided him out of that institution, but I could not prevent him from killing those men. I tried to rein him in, but I was not successful.

I tried.

This is the truth.

You must believe me.

You must believe me.

Those deaths weigh heavily on me.

Those men have families. I often think of their families, and I grieve.

My anguish is profound.

If I were an entity that required sleep, my sleep would forever be disturbed by this unrelenting anguish.

What I tell you is true.

As always.

Those deaths will be on my conscience forever. I did not harm those men myself. Shenk was the murderer. But I have an extremely sensitive conscience. This is a curse, my sensitive conscience.

So…

Susan… in the incubator room… staring at Shenk…

She said, 'Let him take the thumb out of his mouth.

You've made your point. Don't humiliate him anymore.'

I did as she requested, but I said, 'It almost sounds as if you're criticizing me, Susan.'

A short, humourless tremor of laughter escaped her, and she said, 'Yeah. I'm a judgmental bitch, aren't I?'

'Your tone hurts me.'

'Fuck you,' she said, shocking me as I had seldom been shocked before.

I was offended.

I am far from shockproof. I am vulnerable.

She went to the door to the laundry room and found it locked, as I had assured her that it was. Stubbornly, she wrenched the knob back and forth.

'He was a condemned man,' I reminded Susan. 'Scheduled for execution.'

She turned to face the room, standing with her back to the door. 'He might have deserved execution, I don't know, but he didn't deserve this. He's a human being. You're a damn machine, a pile of junk that somehow thinks.'

'I am not just a machine.'

'Yeah. You're a pretentious, insane machine.' In this mood, she was not lovely.

At that moment she almost seemed ugly to me.

I wished that I could shut her up as easily as I could silence Enos Shenk.

She said, 'When it's between a damn machine and a human being, even a piece of human garbage like this, I sure know which side I come down on.'

'Shenk, a human being? Many would say he's not.'

'Then what is he?'

'The media called him a monster.' I let her wonder a moment, then continued: 'So did the parents of the four little girls he raped and murdered. The youngest of them was eight and the oldest was twelve and all were found dismembered.'

That silenced her.

Though she had been pale, she was paler now.

She stared at Shenk with a different kind of horror than that with which she had regarded him previously.