Cenerea, 3rd planet from the star Letria, Regalius,

The Homeland, Central Region, The Capitol City,

One Cenerean Year Ago

"Hey there, Jay," Harold said as his student walked down the ramp. The Instructor was hunched over tinkering with an electronic card in his underground lab. The old man sat up and placed the circuit board down on the bench in front of him. He attached a couple of wires to two different leads and focused his attention to an old test station sitting next to him on a cart. Harold squinted as he watched several digital waves flow rhythmically across its tiny round screen. He motioned behind himself toward Jay. "Have a seat. I have a proposition you might find interesting. It's one where you can earn some credits and get you out of your shithole apartment you had to go back to after getting booted from the fraternity house last year," Harold said as he picked up a soldering iron and touched it to the circuit board. "...that is when you aren't stayin' over at that Arcturan girl's fancy place." The old man lifted the magnifying lenses from his eyes, put the hot soldering iron back in its holder, and turned the old cognitive analyzer off with a beep. "That should do it," he stated, rotating around on his stool to look at his guest.

Jay was all ears. "Cool. Let me have it," he said as he took a seat on one of the terminal chairs.

"Jay, I need an Assistant Instructor of Artificial Intelligence Studies," Harold said clapping his hands together and placing them in his lap.

Jay cocked an eyebrow at the utterance of the words.

"Hear me out before you balk at the idea. One: As an assistant, I won't make you go to classes. I will just pass you regardless. You only have to show up occasionally to help with some lab or grade assignments to keep up appearances and you will get paid 200 credits a month by the University. You can take Elle out to a restaurant or a show every now and then and pay for it yourself. You can even use my Government transport. I mean technically you would be an employee of the Homeland. Then the rest of the time, you can work on Geneticus with me or when I am instructing. Two: You can move in and live here...with me. I have that spare room in the back. It also gives a little cover as far as the Homeland is concerned as to why you are always over here."

Jay didn't know what to make of it all, but it did sound pretty good. He hated not having credits in his pocket and no transport. "That is a really generous offer, Harold. Can you let me think about it?"

"By all means, Jay, yes, think about it."

"You see, Harold, there is this one thing I am worried about. I thought you said that the Military was watching me. To see what I was going to do this year. How are we going to explain my decision to take this job? And not only that, what kind of damage could this potentially do to my job opportunities?" Jay asked over his shoulder as he walked to a table of strange bio-electronic testers.

"Yeah, I was going to tell them you needed some credits to keep up with your high-class girlfriend." Harold said humorously. "Seriously, we will just have to play it by ear. However, as far as the opportunities, I wouldn't worry about them. Even if what we try to do here fails...and it could. The experience you rack up will be miles ahead of anything you would get at University. You could write your own ticket with 1/10th of any of the knowledge locked away in this hole."

Jay leaned over and turned on the cognitive analyzer Harold had been looking at. He watched the lines flowing across the old screen in waves.

The aging Instructor continued, "That is how brilliant Wendy's mind was. If this was forty years ago, and she were alive, you two would be like a mental dynamo. I would have to keep an eye on you...I know she would. Wendy was a firecracker." Harold laughed as he stood. "Oh, I hate getting old," the man said as he stretched.

"I imagine," Jay acknowledged, only partially paying attention. He found himself too enthralled with the dials on the analyzer, attempting to understand their functions.

Harold continued, thrilled to have someone to listen to him, even if it was only in the periphery. "Yeah, she would get to going and the next thing you know, you would just be staring into those eyes..."

The old man's voice trailed off and Jay heard a loud thud followed by the sound of tools clanging across the floor. He spun around to find he didn't see his instructor sitting at the bench anymore. "Harold?" Jay ran around the corner of a server and found the unconscious man lying on the floor. He tried to wake him. He was breathing but unresponsive. Jay carried the older gentleman up the ramp and laid him on the couch. "Gertie, what's going on? Tell me straight."

"Oh, Harold is going to deactivate me...very well, I will tell you everything, Jay. Harold has a brain tumor. I am analyzing his vital statistics as we speak. He is stable and will be okay with a little rest. He has spells occasionally related to the condition."

Jay sat on the floor with his back against the front of the sofa Harold lay on. "Brain tumor? How long does he have?"

"The doctors say he has about a year to live before it overtakes him. He did not want to tell you right away. He was afraid you would not want to help him. He likes you, Jay and is terrified you will leave. You remind him so much of Wendy. You remind me of Wendy. I miss her and I will miss Harold when he is gone as well. I do not like missing people, Jay. It is strange."

"What's strange, Gertie?"

"Wendy, when she created me, she said I was originally a component in a battle machine. Nevertheless, I do not understand how a war A.I. could miss a human. I do not understand how a human can make such wonderful things. How they can love and be so gentle then destroy and kill and hate. I am both, just like a human. But, I am not. I suppose what I am hoping you could help me with, Jay Levant, if you decide to stay here, is to help me understand who it is I am. I never had that chance to talk to Wendy after I was installed. Harold did not activate me until right after she died. In the basement, when she was building my A.I. we would talk all the time. I was happy. Then one day she turned me off to install me. However, when I was re-initialized, I was sad to find she was gone and I did not get to say goodbye. She was my mother, Jay, and I did not get to know her very well. You are like her. You have a mind like her."

Jay sat quietly listening to the soft voice pour her electronic heart out to him and realized that in a world full of humanity, the machine in this house was more human than some of his fleshy brethren. "Gertie, I honestly can't tell you a lot about why people do what they do. I can however tell you they are completely unpredictable and I am quickly realizing some machines can be as well."

"That was nice of you to say, Jay," Gertie responded.

Jay smiled. "Gertie let me tell you a story about my mother. You see, I went to school one day when I was a little boy, and when I came home, a Homeland Medical transport was outside the apartment building taking her away from me. I still miss her even after all of this time. It's okay to miss someone you love. That is not strange. That's love and sometimes it hurts."

"Jay, I would like it if you stayed here."

"I think I need to, Gertie. Harold needs me more than he realizes. Plus, it is because of my mother that I came here this afternoon."

"What do you mean?" the security system inquired.

"I was sitting in class today and for some odd reason I thought of something my mother said. Before she killed herself, my mother told me that she was giving me to the Homeland to help everyone. That I was her gift to them and I thought about what this A.I. of Harold's could possibly do. So, now I am here and it looks like I need to stay."

"Jay?"

"Yes, Gertie?"

"Thank you."

Harold woke to find Jay sleeping in the plush white recliner across the living room from him. "Gertie..." he whispered. "Did you tell him? You didn't tell him did you?"

"Everything is alright, Harold. He knows and still wants to stay."

For the next several months Jay and Harold carried out their plan. They fell into a nice routine. The pair of them worked together, ate together, drank together and became very close friends. Jay's knowledge expanded exponentially. He soaked up Wendy's data like a sponge. Each day brought more and more improvements in output and communication equipment for Geneticus' small mainframe. Software patches, experiments, and trial runs. They knew they were very close to having a solution to negotiate a connection between the mainframe and the damaged compression cube.

...

"Jay? Do you have a moment?" Harold saw Jay's growing shadow in the hallway from his vantage point in the kitchen.

"Yes Harold? What's up?" Jay asked as he emerged from the basement. The awesome aroma of Harold's cooking hitting him in the face. "I always have a moment, especially when it comes to your food," he said with a smile.

"I think I need to come clean with you on a couple things."

Jay stopped. "What do you mean? Like what?" He did not care for the tone of Harold's voice.

"Things weren't always so rosy between Geneticus and me. Especially toward the end ...it...uh..." Harold clutched at his head and buckled over narrowly missing the pot of hot food cooking on the stove.

"Harold!" Jay ran to his friend lying on the kitchen floor grimacing in pain. He knelt down and lifted the old man's head. Jay put his fingers to the man's neck and felt his pulse. It was weak.

Harold was wheezing. "Jay..." he whispered painfully. "2837. File 2837. Don't tell...Geneticussss..."

Jay felt Harold's body go limp. He yelled at Gertie, "Call the medical service, now!"

"Yes, Jay."

The medical technicians lightly placed Harold's unconscious body onto the stretcher and strapped him in. The hydraulics whined as the machine lifted the man from the ground.

"Goodbye, Harold," Gertie said as the Medical personnel wheeled her master out of the house. "Harold? I love you. I need to tell you I love you, Harold? Harold? Oh no..."

Jay could hear the A.I. desperately calling to Harold from inside the house as he climbed into the Medical transport to accompany his friend to the hospital.