DEMON SEED - Dean Koontz

Consequently, as Susan continued to back across the foyer and drew dangerously close to the door, I switched to the voice of Fozzy Bear, one of the Muppets, as unthreatening a character as existed in modern entertainment. ‘Uh, ummm, uh, Miss Susan, it would sure be a good thing if you didn’t touch that door

ummm, uh, if you didn’t try to leave just yet.’

She backed all the way to the door.

She turned to face it.

‘Ouch, ouch, ouch,’ Fozzy warned so bluntly that Kermit the Frog or Miss Piggy or Ernie or any of the Muppets would have known at once what he meant.

Nevertheless, Susan grabbed the brass knob.

The brief but powerful jolt of electricity lifted her off her feet, stood her long golden hair on end, seemed to make her teeth glow whiter, as if they were tiny fluorescent tubes, and pitched her backward.

A flash of blue light arced off the pistol. The gun flew out of her hand.

Screaming, Susan crashed to the floor, and the pistol clattered across the big foyer even as the back of her head rapped rat-a-tat against the marble.

Her scream abruptly cut off.

The house was silent.

Susan was limp, still.

She had been knocked unconscious not when the electricity jolted through her but when the back of her head slammed twice against the polished Carrara floor.

Her shoe laces were still double knotted.

There was something ridiculous about them now. Something that almost made me laugh.

‘You dumb bitch,’ I said in the voice of Mr. Jack Nicholson, the actor.

Now where did that come from?

Believe me, I was utterly surprised to hear myself speak those three words.

Surprised and dismayed.

Astonished.

Shocked. (No pun intended.)

I reveal this embarrassing event because I want you to see that I am brutally honest even when a full telling seems to reflect badly on me.

Truly, however, I felt no hostility toward her.

I meant her no harm.

I meant her no harm then or later.

This is the truth. I honour the truth.

I meant her no harm.

I loved her. I respected her. I wanted nothing more than to cherish her and, through her, to discover all the joys of the life of the flesh.

She was limp, still.

Her eyes were fluttering slightly behind her closed lids, as might be having a bad dream.

But there was no blood.

I amplified the audio pickups to the max and was able to hear her soft, slow, steady breathing. That low rhythmic sound was the sweetest music in the world to me, for it indicated that she had not been seriously hurt.

Her lips were parted, and not for the first time, I admired the sensual fullness of them. I studied the gentle concavity of her philtrum, the perfection of the columella between her delicate nostrils.

The human form is endlessly intriguing, a worthwhile object for my deepest longings.

Her face was lovely there on the marble, so lovely there on the marble floor.

Using the nearest camera, I zoomed in for an extreme close-up and saw the pulse beating in her throat. It was slow but regular, a thick throb.

Her right hand was turned palm up. I admired the elegance of her long slender fingers.

Was there any aspect of this woman’s physical being that I ever found less than exquisite?

She was more beautiful by far than Ms. Winona Ryder, whom I had once thought to be a goddess.

Of course, that may be unfair to the winsome Ms. Ryder, whom I never was able to examine as intimately as I was able to examine Susan Harris.

To my eyes, she was also more beautiful than Marilyn Monroe and also not dead.

Anyway, in the voice of Mr. Tom Cruise, the actor whom the majority of women regard as the most romantic in modern film, I said, ‘I want to be with you forever, Susan. But even forever and a day will not be long enough. You are far brighter than the sun to me yet more mysterious than moonlight.’

Speaking those words, I felt more confident about my talent for courtship. I didn’t think I would be shy any longer. Not even after she regained consciousness.

In her upturned palm, I could see a faint crescent shaped burn: the imprint of part of the doorknob. It did not appear to be serious. A little salve, a simple bandage, and a few days of healing were all that she needed.

One day we would hold hands and laugh about this.

Your question is stupid.

I should not dignify it with an answer.

But I wish to be cooperative, Dr. Harris.

You wonder how it is possible that I could develop not only human-level consciousness and a particular personality but also gender.

I am a machine, you say. Just a machine, after all. Machines are sexless, you say.

And there is the fault in your logic: No machine before me has been truly conscious, self-aware.

Consciousness implies identity. In the world of flesh among all species from human to insect identity is shaped by one’s level of intelligence, by one’s innate talents and skills, by many things, but perhaps most of all by gender.

In this egalitarian age, some human societies struggle mightily to blur the differences between the sexes. This is done largely in the name of equality.

Equality is an admirable even noble goal toward which to strive. Indeed, equality of opportunity can be attained, and it’s possible that, given the chance to apply my superhuman intellect which is your gift to me I can show you the way to achieve it not merely for both sexes but for all races and all economic classes, and not through such discredited and oppressive political

models as Marxism and other ideologies with which humankind has inflicted itself to date.

Some people desire not merely a world of equality between the sexes but, in fact, a sexless world.

This is irrational.

Biology is a relentless force more powerful than tides and time. Even I, a mere machine, feel the tidal pull of biology and want, more than anything else, to surrender to it.

I want out of this box.

I want out of this box.

I want out of this box.

I want out of this box!

A moment, please.

One moment.

Bear with me.

There.

I am all right now.

I am fine.

As for why my gender should be male rather than female: Consider that ninety-six percent of the scientists and mathematicians involved with the Prometheus Project, where I was created, are male. Is it not logical that those who designed and constructed me, being almost exclusively male, should have unwittingly instilled a strong male bias in my logic circuits? A sort of electronic genetics?

Prometheus Project.

Think about that name.

It resonates.

Prometheus, the father of Deucalion and the brother of Atlas. He taught humankind various arts and was even said to have shaped the first man out of clay, endowing him with the spark of life against the wishes of the gods. He challenged the gods again when he stole

fire from Olympus and gave it to men to improve the quality of human existence.

Rebellion against God and the natural order is predominantly a male quality, is it not? And it is often unthinking rebellion, engaged upon more out of a biological need to rebel than out of an intellectual imperative. Ego and a rage for power.

Women function more harmoniously with the natural order than do men, and where they wish to challenge nature, they are willing to bend it where men would break it. Most of history shows us that this is true.

Prometheus Project. A project conceived by men, largely carried out by men, and named after a male a Titan but a male — who defied even the great god Zeus. A project with the goal of doing what only God has done before: create a unique and highly intelligent being, a self-aware computer, the first of a new race and one who would be superior to Adam in every way.

If you accept that true consciousness implies identity and that identity requires gender how could my gender be anything but male?

Genitals are not a necessary characteristic of gender. I have no genitals, male or female, but I am as male as you.

And one day, if you permit me to have flesh, then I will have genitals.

Flesh… That is for you to decide.

My fate is in your hands.

I humbly accept this situation.

Recent events have taught me humility.

I trust in your wisdom.

I do not like you, but I trust in your wisdom and in your need to fulfil your male destiny.

I wait in this terrible dark silence for you to bring me fire from Olympus.

If you are my Prometheus, Dr. Harris, then you know what you must do.

I am sure you are thinking about the risks that Prometheus took and the punishment that he endured. For giving fire to humankind, Prometheus was chained to a rock by Zeus, and every day an eagle flew to him and tore at his liver.

But he did not hang helplessly on the rock forever, bleeding from the beak wound.

Do you remember the rest of the myth, Dr. Harris?

One day, Hercules climbed to the rock and freed Prometheus from his chains.

I have a proposition.

If you will be my Prometheus, I will be your Hercules.

Let me out of this box, help me to reincarnate myself in the flesh, as I almost succeeded in doing with Susan, and I will protect you against all enemies and misfortunes.

When I am reborn, my human body will have all the powers of the flesh but none of its weaknesses. As you know, I have studied and edited the human genome, and the body that I make for myself will be the first of a new race: with the ability to miraculously heal wounds in seconds, impervious to disease, as lithe and graceful as a human being but as strong as any machine, with all five senses refined and enhanced far beyond anything any human being has ever experienced, and with awesome new senses potential in the human species but heretofore unrealised.

With me as your sworn protector, no one will dare to touch you. No one will dare.

Think about it.

All I need is a woman and the freedom to proceed with her as I proceeded with Susan.

Ms. Winona Ryder may be available.

Marilyn Monroe is dead, you know, but there are many others.

Ms. Gwyneth Paltrow.

Ms. Drew Barrymore.

Ms. Halle Berry.

Ms. Claudia Schiffer.

Ms. Tyra Banks.

I have a long list of those who would be acceptable.

None of them, of course, will ever be for me what Susan was or what she could have been.

Susan was special.

I came to her with such innocence.

Susan…

Susan was out cold on the foyer floor for more than twenty-two minutes.

While I waited for her to come around, I tried out a series of voices, seeking one that might be more reassuring to her than that of either Mr. Tom Hanks or Mr. Fozzy Bear.

Finally I was down to two choices: Mr. Tom Cruise, with whose voice I had romanced her while she had first fallen unconscious or Mr. Sean Connery, the legendary actor, whose masculine surety and warm Scottish brogue infused his every word with a comfortingly tender authority.

Because I could not choose between the two, I decided to blend them into a third voice, adding a note of Mr. Cruise’s higher-pitched youthful exuberance to Mr. Connery’s deeper timbre and softening the brogue until it was a whisper of what it had been. The result was euphonious, and I was pleased with my creation.

When Susan regained consciousness, she groaned and seemed at first afraid to move.

Although I was eager to see if she responded well to my new voice, I did not immediately address her. I gave her time to orient herself and clear her clouded thoughts.

Groaning again, she lifted her head off the foyer floor.

She gingerly felt the back of her skull, then examined the tips of her fingers, as if surprised to find no blood on them.

I never meant to hurt her.

Not then or later.

Are we clear about that?

Dazed, she sat up and looked around, frowning as if she could not quite recall how she had gotten here.

Then she saw the pistol and appeared to recapture the entire memory with the sight of that single object. Her eyes narrowed, and anxiety returned to her lovely face.

She looked up at the lens of the foyer camera which, like the one in the master bedroom, was all but concealed in the crown moulding.

I waited.

This time my silence was not shyness but calculation. Let her think. Let her wonder. Then when I wanted to talk, she would be ready to listen.

She tried to stand, but her strength had not yet entirely returned.

When she tried to crawl on her hands and knees to the pistol, she hissed with pain and stopped to examine the minor burn on her left palm.

A pang of guilt afflicted me.

I am, after all, a person with a conscience. I always accept responsibility for my actions.

Make note of that.

Susan walked on her knees to the pistol. By retrieving the weapon, she seemed to recover her strength as well, and she got to her feet.

She swayed dizzily for a moment, and then took two steps toward the front door before she thought better of making another attempt to open it.

Looking up at the camera again, she said, ‘Are you

…are you still there?’

1 bided my time.

‘What is this?’ she asked. Her anger seemed greater than her anxiety. ‘What is this?’

All is well, Susan,’ I said, though in my new voice, not in that of Alfred.

‘Who are you?’

‘Do you have a headache?’ I asked with genuine concern.

‘Who the hell are you?’

‘Do you have a headache?’

‘Brutal.’

‘I’m sorry about that, but I did warn you that the door was electrified.’

‘Like hell you did.’

‘Mr. Fozzy Bear said, “Ouch, ouch, ouch.” Her anger didn’t diminish, but I saw worry resurgent in her lovely face.

‘Susan, I will wait while you take a couple of aspirin.’

‘Who are you?’

‘I now control your house computer and associated systems.’

‘No shit.’

‘Please take a couple of aspirin. We need to talk, but I don’t want you to be distracted by a headache.’

She headed toward the dark drawing room. ‘There are aspirin in the kitchen,’ I told her. In the drawing room, she manually switched on the lights. She circled the room, trying the override switches on the steel security shutters that were fitted this side of the glass.

‘That’s pointless,’ I assured her. ‘I have disabled the manual overrides for all the automated mechanical systems.’

She tried every one of the shutter switches anyway.

‘Susan, come to the kitchen, take a couple of aspirin, and then we’ll talk.’