Devil's Paradise

11: Wizard's Workshop: Perfect World

In another month, Merlin had constructed a motorized chassis, so his waldos could work all over the lab floor, and even ride the elevator up to other floors, if power was available. Those first waldos were on fairly small arms, about the size a large child would have, and they weren't all that precise, but they could still handle work too precise for us to do easily.

By that time, there was enough local Internet operating that Merlin could manage procurement for us. Delilah got us an abandoned warehouse a couple of blocks away where we took deliveries and stored materials as they arrived. Tony brought supplies over with a forklift.

We kept working through the brief fall and a second brutal winter when we stayed inside for days at a time. Twice, Delilah got snowed in with me in the lab, and we didn't get out for a week. The first time, we completed assembly of the inner portion of the helmet.

We whooped in celebration as Merlin began testing, and suddenly, we were kissing. I'm still not sure who started it.

I broke away after a few seconds, more confused than ever. I'm going back to rescue my wife. I can't deal with this. I turned back to see Delilah's sad expression. "I'm sorry," I said. "I can't do this."

"You have to move on, Louis. You have to let her go. You can't go back and save them."

"What if I can?" I snapped back. "What if I can go back in time and save them both?"

Delilah's mouth dropped open. "I can't tell if you're joking."

"I'm not."

"I—Merlin, is it possible to go back in time?"

"We will not know until we try it, but it seems to be so."

Delilah's eyes widened, but then her mouth set. "Even if you can, you shouldn't."

I looked at her in astonishment. "What if you could prevent D-day?"

Delilah looked off into the distance and bit her lip, then looked back and shook her head. "Not unless it's the only way for the human race to survive, and maybe not even then." Her face was very sad, and she reached up to touch my face.

I drew back, and she stopped. "Okay," she said, a tear starting down, "I'll stop throwing myself at you, Louis, but you need to move on with your life. You loved her, fine. That's really admirable, but she's dead. When you hang onto the past, you lose the opportunity to live, and I'm sure she wouldn't want that."

My throat was dry, and I swallowed. "What about eight billion others? Would you go back to save them?"

She nodded. "That's where it gets hard."

"Hard? What could possibly be worth allowing eight billion people to die?" I was horrified at the idea.

"In the future, nothing. I'd give my life to prevent it. In the past, though, you lose everything gained by going back."

"We haven't gained anything!" I screamed, and I waved my hand in a large arc. "We're barely hanging on, and we still might all die." I couldn't believe what I was hearing.

"We won't," she said, and there was a grim determination in her voice and on her face. "We have already come a long way back, and we're going to keep climbing. And yes, D-day was probably the greatest tragedy in all of human history, but Louis, it didn't wipe us out, did it? What happens if you go back and prevent it? What happens then?"

I was still dumbfounded that she could even ask the question. "I don't know. I suppose they go on as they were."

"Yes, exactly. Remember how things were? Remember how afraid people were? Eight and a half billion people, with half of them wanting to kill everyone not like themselves. If you managed to prevent one kind of D-day scenario, there would be another. That was always a certainty. There were a lot of ways the world could have ended, and most of those scenarios might have resulted in no one on Earth left alive at all. We've lost so much, but we aren't gone. If you go back, even if everything works out the way you hope, we might still be completely wiped out by something else."

She put her hands on my arms, pleading. "We are building the world again, Louis, you and I and Merlin. What we are doing, right here and now, will help us avoid the mistakes we made before."

She flung her arm out to point at Merlin. "Merlin can help us make the world a better place than it's ever been before." She turned to his metal case. "Can't you, Merlin?"

"I'm not sure what you mean, Ms. Witherstick."

"I'm talking about what you have going on in that warehouse, Merlin."

I started. "Merlin?"

"I am merely building bigger waldos with better precision control, Louis, in anticipation of when commercial products are ready for mass production."

I looked down at the little waldo on wheels that was busy soldering on the outer portion of the helmet. "You've been taking that thing over to the warehouse at night?"

"No. I used it to build a second motorized waldo with longer arms, here in the lab. When it was done, I rolled that one over to the warehouse. There, I've been using it to build more complex waldos in a clean environment. Those will be used for commercial manufacturing and future prototype construction."

My mouth was dry as I thought about this particular genie being out of the bottle. I felt a lump of ice in my stomach. "Merlin, who or what is controlling those waldos?"

"I am, Louis."

"They are still under your direct control?"

"That is correct. We cannot manufacture these helmets using traditional methods, Louis. Human resources are consumed in survival. The only way this helmet will find acceptance is if I build it using additional units under my control."

"Merlin, is there any possibility any of those units will get out of your control?"

"No, Louis. Even if I were to create an additional artificial intelligence, it would remain under my direct control, or else it would be bound by the same First Laws that bind me."

I breathed a little easier, hearing that, but Delilah moved up beside me, and put her hand on my arm. "Merlin," she said, "What about my question? Couldn't you help us clean up the Earth? Make the world natural and beautiful?"

Merlin hesitated, for I think about three seconds, before he said, "Yes, I think I could assist in bringing about that goal. Louis?"

I was still thinking about the fact that Merlin had not told me about setting up a manufacturing facility. "Yes, Merlin?"

"Shall I set making Earth a perfect home for humans part of my principal tasks?"

"Eh? Yes, why not?"

"Indeed. Programming modified."

It sounded too good to be true. I worried.

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