Suddenly, a great crunching of metal could be heard from ahead. Laura froze and grabbed Gray's hand. A Model Seven patrolling the jungle's edge was being pulled into the bush by the leg. Its spotlight spun wildly about, and its other legs dug at the turf. If robots could scream, it would've been shrieking as the first of the fiery torches arced downward. The sizzling sound and screeching and tearing of metal were sickening enough to Laura. But she realized as the last of the thin legs disappeared into the jungle that the robot could scream. It could shriek in holy terror only Laura couldn't hear it.
All the robots around them were still, even the fidgety Model Sixes.
They all shone their lights on the same spot in the jungle wall, seeing nothing now more than quivering bushes. Hearing, Laura imagined, no more of the frantic, microwave pleas or wails of agony and death.
Gray's outward demeanor remained collected. "Can I ask a question?" Laura said, barely able to keep her tone civil. "Why are you not sick to your stomach over all this?" She looked across the destruction that had been wrought on his finely manicured lawns. "Put aside any moral aspects of what's been happening! I mean just sick at the waste. The time you spent creating these magnificent machines. Your money! Sick at something!"
When he turned to face her, she felt drawn into him. "There's only one common characteristic of life," he said, speaking softly. "It is violent. It is aggressive in its growth — in its replication. It carves out its niche… or it doesn't survive. It's that behavior which defines life best. That definition of life encompasses biological and computer viruses at the low end of the spectrum, and life's new and higher order as well."
"Do you mean that the robots are the new higher order, Joseph? Are you saying we're no longer number-one? That the 'spectrum,' as you call it, that measures things by their intelligence now puts the robots ahead of us?" Gray shrugged and looked away — releasing her from his spell.
The moment had passed, and Laura felt again the unsettling emotional swerve. She looked out and saw a Model Six pick something up, look at it, and then drop it into its bin. Even on the eve of battle, it was still cleaning Mr. Gray's field of debris.
"We're talking about two different measures," Gray said in resumption of a conversation she thought had ended. "One is intelligence. Computers will certainly surpass us by that measure, if they haven't already. There's no upper end to their expanding ability. Their architecture is open-ended, unlike ours."
"We could start bionics," she suggested in an offhanded manner. "Maybe begin implanting parts of computers and robots into our bodies to keep pace." Laura's face grew flushed, and she expected Gray to laugh at the half-baked idea.
"But then we lose!" Gray said, grabbing her hand and squeezing so hard it startled her. "Bit by bit we would cease being human. Over time, the process begins to look more like we're being eaten alive by the machines, doesn't it?" Laura shrugged. "Think about it," Gray repeated. He was serious. Laura had no ready reply.
"If our objective is to keep pace with these things," he said, waving his hand across the field at the robots, "then why would we start giving up pieces of ourselves? What would be left when you carried it to its logical end? In order to gain an advantage in competing for a factory job you might replace your legs with bionic legs. But what's to prevent your competition from also strapping on bionic arms? Plus, you wouldn't want to be roaming around an industrial furnace with robotic arms and legs but a torso made of flesh. At some point biological reproduction would cease. The bionic hybrids would be sterile. And we might live two thousand years, but we wouldn't remember much. The human brain can't remember anything but memories of its memories for much over five years. So what's the last step in that process, Laura?" She shook her head and shrugged, looking up at him for the answer. But he refused to supply it, waiting instead for her to think.
"I don't know," she said. "Replace the brain with a more capable model?"
"Exactly!"
Laura smiled like a pupil on pleasing her teacher. She quickly caught herself, however, when she realized how insane the ideas were.
They were terrifying, and she had no idea why she was allowing herself to be taken in by them.
They walked on in silence past another row of Model Sevens — standing poised and ready for battle. "It was just an idea," she mumbled, wondering why her offhand suggestion about bionics would… Gray spun her around and grabbed her arms, studying her with blazing eyes. He focused on her as if she had just said the most important thing in the world. He pulled Laura toward him, his eyes remaining fixed on hers. Their faces close. His mouth descending toward her lips — pausing, hovering, almost touching. Laura drew in breath. Air no longer seemed important. An electric fire set her skin tingling, spreading from the unyielding pressure where their bodies met.
And then the moment was over. Gray pulled away, and the night air rushed in to fill the place where the warmth had been. Slowly he walked away.
It took Laura a moment to orient herself. "Hey!" she called out. "What the…" Her voice and anger rose. "Did I just miss something here?" He didn't answer, and she ran after him. "Hel-l-o-o-o?"
Gray stopped and looked at his watch. "We'd better get back."
"You… you can't just…!" Just what? "You can't just take me on some mind-blowing tour of your twisted future and then leave me lying around in little pieces like… like one of your machines!"
Laura wanted to keep talking, but she didn't know what she would say next. She knew only the true cause of her upset. She yearned for the feel of him — for the crush of his body against hers.
Laura closed her eyes and drew a deep breath. "Okay," she continued, her voice level. "Look, Joseph. We've gone from — what? — a million years ago when we were all just one big happy ape family, to strapping on bionic legs to compete in the workplace. But this is just undergraduate brainstorming crap, right?"
Gray smiled inexplicably. "Did I ever tell you that you're really fun to talk to?"
"What?"
"But we ought to be getting back," he said, turning for the computer center.
"I'm not through yet!" Laura said in exasperation. She tried to match his apparent detachment but found herself hating him for the very behavior she attempted to emulate. "Do you know how mad it makes everybody here when you don't tell them anything unless they've already figured it out for themselves? And then you humiliate them by saying you already knew what they had just discovered! Oh, and sometimes you just don't answer! I mean… Jesus! Do you realize how rude that is? To not even acknowledge that you heard a question?"
"We really ought to be getting back, Laura."
"There! You see? You're doing it again!"
"Laura," he nodded toward the jungle, "the Model Eights are back."
Her eyes shot over to the searchlights, which shone on the jungle wall. There was movement just beyond the branches. "You're watching the opening battle of a war," he said. "It's the beginning, but the end is a long, long way away."
"What are you saying, Joseph?" she pleaded. "Please just tell me what you're talking about! What's the purpose of all these robots and spaceships and factories and computers?"
There! she thought. At least she'd asked. She looked up at him, and he looked at her.
To her great surprise, Gray answered. "There is a day coming, Laura, when intelligent machines will roam the earth. They won't bring an end to war, because war is as natural a phenomenon as life itself. Those machines will, however, raise the stakes. As time marches on, advancements will redefine virtually every facet of our lives except one — the competition among all living things for survival. Life is violent and aggressive in defense of its ecological niche, Laura, or God anoints another species as the fittest."