AIQ

Part 7

And it was then that Frasier woke up. The Bach came to a grinding halt and the red that had relected off of his face disappeared. Rubin, not actually expecting this to happen so quickly, jumped up as he saw the doctor rise and face him. Frasier looked around. The room was completely empty and dark except for a single light above Frasier and a single light above Rubin. He realized that he and Rubin were the only two people in surgery.

Upon the discovery of this, Frasier began to shout. “Where is Eugene? What did you do to him!?”

“He’s gone. Long gone! I helped him reach the main computer. He shut off your lockdown-- and now, the army is coming for you.”

“I thought… I thought I told you to stay out of my way.” Then Frasier reared himself up. “And coming for me? Huh. I doubt it.”

“You doubt it? How? How do you possibly see this going on any longer?”

“I’ll think of something.”

“No. It’s over. There’s nothing else to think about. You’ve killed two people. Traumatized a boy for life. Do you think you can make that all just… go away?”

“Of course. People have made much worse things go away.”

“In five minutes?”

“Yes. Just… just give me a second.”

“No,” Rubin smiled, scornfully. “It’s done.”

“No! It’s not! I still have a chance! Look, I’ve got this far, haven’t I? I’ve been fighting for this project for ten years! Ten years! Do you think I wanted to end it this way? No. I’m going to make it.”

Rubin chuckled to himself. “No you won’t. It’s time to face the facts, Frasier.”

“But… but I didn’t get a chance… I didn’t even get a chance…”

“You never had a chance, Frasier. Look at you. You gave up everything for your AIQ, huh? Your Artificial Intelligence Quotient, right? A name you came up with when you were eleven years old! You’ve been chasing a dream. A thirty yearlong dream that you feel has given you reason to be better than everyone else. But that’s a lie. Your statistics, your endless pool of data – it was all a lie. You even forced us to act like stupid tour guides to keep your secret from those poor, poor people. You threatened us with death multiple times.”

“Shut up.”

“We both know that as hard as you tried, you couldn’t get it to work in the field. We both know that all your AIQ did was fry those poor little ape brains. We both know you faked the results for everything, even going as far as cutting out parts of the taped experiments to make it seem like things had worked. For the past ten years you’ve been trying to fix something that was completely impossible to do in the first place.”

“Shut up.”

“No. You deserve everything that is about to happen to you. Two people are dead because you wanted to keep the illusion alive. Diagnostic after diagnostic. Night after night. We worked and worked, no end in sight. But we never succeeded. But you weren’t thinking realistically. From the beginning, the AIQ was impossible. I never should have joined this project; even though you practically begged me to be a part of it.”

“That never happened!” Tears suddenly began streaming down Frasier’s face, as he drew the gun and pointed it at Rubin’s forehead. “Stop lying! I… I could have done it… if I had more time…”

“Stop blaming everybody other than yourself, Frasier! You think you can point a gun at me, that that somehow will prove you’re right!? Well you’re wrong! You’re wrong and no matter what happens you’ll be wrong. You can say the past ten years were meaningful – wrong! You can say that the AIQ was possible, even on paper – wrong! You can tell the world that you belong to some of the greatest scientific minds in the world, but you made me, Karl, me, write your thesis because you couldn't think of any way to start it. You believe yourself to be some great man, that you are better than everyone, but that is wrong. And that’s the one truth you choose to ignore: you are a liar! Not only to yourself, you lied to everyone. You have done nothing but destroy three lives in for these past ten years. That’s all you did, Frasier. As much as you’d like to convince everyone otherwise, including yourself, that’s all you did.”

“No!” Frasier said, tears now mixing with snot. “No! I can – I can fix everything! I know I can make the AIQ, I can make Eugene walk again, I can make it so that he can have a life, I can—”

“No. Do you know that poor kid wanted to kill you when he very well could have, but I stopped him? Do you realize I saved your life? I made it so that you could live. But only to prevent him from being haunted of what he was about to do. I didn’t want him to end up like you, in the end. Because in the end, you have to pay the price.”

And then, Frasier realized that Rubin and himself were not the only two people in the room. On all sides, as if they had come out of the darkness, appeared the shapes of at least twenty-five soldiers; sub automatics raised, poised to fire at Frasier’s head.

“No!” Frasier said, putting his hands in the air, frenetically looking at every one of the soldier’s hidden faces. “I… I just need more time! I’m so close! Just a few minutes more and I can build it, I’ll add whatever you want, and I’ll make it work just like it’s supposed to—”

But the black shapes of the hulking, metal cloaked soldiers did not listen. One man, a man whose face was hidden beneath a shield of bulletproof glass, cocked his gun. So did everyone else.

“Fire,” the man said. His eyes were like that of a robot; unquestioning, unwilling to do anything but get his job done. It was perhaps insane and realistic at the same exact time. They were the eyes of Frasier reflected back at him.

Frasier began to have a fit; prostrating himself to the group of soldiers. “Please! Please don’t! I’m sorry! I'm so sorry! I messed up, I know, but please…. just give me another chance? I can make it work, if that’s what you want. That’s why I did everything you know; to make it work. Things… things just got out of hand.”

“Why are you hesitating?" The man said once more. "Fire!”

“No. Don’t do it. You don’t have to. Don’t be slaves! I can make it work. Come on! I’ve figured it all out! Don’t listen to Rubin; I was almost there! Please. I can’t be a failure. I can’t. I need to be remembered. I need to be

                                                       End