Deep Black Road: The Head of the Snake

Chapter 2

Marilyn pulled onto the main campus of the sprawling Pittsburgh University, and stopped in front of the grand but stark Pratt T. Middleton Building for Engineering. Relatively new, it was situated several blocks north of the university's ancient and venerable landmark, the Cathedral of Learning.

Stepping out into the chilly spring breeze, Ricky spoke into his link, "Dr. Bruce Sheppard."

"Oh," responded his father distractedly after a moment. "Here already?"

"Yeah. Where you at?"

"My lab."

"Am I clear?" His father always forgot to notify Sentinel that he was coming.

"Sorry. ... You are now."

"Okay. See you in a minute." He dismissed the car and headed inside.

#

After placing his right hand onto the pad by the door so Sentinel could verify his identity, Ricky entered the large and cluttered laboratory, and held up the bag. "Come and get it!" he called out.

"Over here," responded his father from a distant corner. Standing up, he waved Ricky over, and then grabbed the bag.

"I'm starved!" he exclaimed as he tore it open. "I haven't eaten since this morning."

"The project's that big?" Ricky asked as he sat down at the worktable with his father, who passed him his food.

"You have no idea," he responded. "General Orkan, the chief of Foredan CDA command, is coming up from Atlanta to approve this highly experimental robot himself." Dr. Sheppard pointedly glanced at the neighbouring table, where a robot skeleton lay on its face. "And he'll be here in less than an hour."

"How come an up like him's coming here to Pittsburgh from all the way down there?" Ricky bit into his burger. "Atlanta's got to be hundreds of kilo-metres away."

"Just over seven hundred. Dr. Shamir upstairs has been doing experiments with transferring the memories of chimpanzees into robots, and the general got wind of it."

"What's that got to do with anything?"

His father wolfed down some fries and said, "What Shamir's actually working towards is the transfer of human memories." Covering his link with his hand, which Ricky immediately copied, he said confidentially, "It's being withheld from the Network news sites—so don't you go saying anything to anyone—but Orkan's terminally ill."

Ricky let that sink in. "You're kidding. A robot programmed to be totally human?"

"Being paid for out of secret military funds." He let go of his wrist and gulped some of his drink. "Now hurry up. I need to get the skin processor wired into the spine before he gets here, or I'm in big trouble."

Stuffing the rest of his food into his mouth as he puzzled over what the 'skin processor' might be for, Ricky dashed over to the near wall and palmed a locker. Pulling out his lab coat, toolbox, and hardhat, he returned and stationed himself at one side of the worktable, where he threw on the coat, slapped the hat on his head, and flipped down the attached set of goggles that gave him a close-up view of the action.

His father dropped a steel box onto his side of the table, put on his own hard-hat, and carefully drew a small component out from the box.

"What are you using for skin that it needs a processor?" Ricky asked as his father inserted the device into a split vertebra on the robot. He then held the part in place with forceps while his father connected it.