The Pieces of My Self

56 - The Two Towers

LILLIAN

The Dome, 22 June 2174, Wednesday, 12 am

I followed Usher and the Sentinel onto a wide promenade that curved around the interior of the Dome.

We were two stories above a central pond and one story below two bridges that formed an "X," dividing the vast interior into quadrants. We were close to the head of one bridge, and I could see steps leading to it from the promenade.

Water spilled from the metal ceiling, barely missing the mid-section of the bridges as it plunged into the pond, which appeared to be littered with debris of some sort—timbers or logs.

I found the cavernous space unsettling and gripped the hands of Grady and Amara.

Usher spoke to me with a hurried urgency. "The bridge above us connects on this end to the Southwest Tower, where Henri developed robotics and energy systems. The cross bridge is a fast way to the Northeast Tower, where we must go.

I looked across the chasm to the far side. "What's there?"

"Victory," it said. Then, after a moment: "That is where Henri built avatars. It is where we can upload the ring. It unlocks everything."

Usher gazed upward. "When Henri was here, he would stand at the intersection of the two bridges over the pond and speak to employees about the future. About his vision. The people would all be on this promenade, circling all the way around, packed, listening. They were all part of a grand adventure."

"Yeah. It was an adventure that screwed everybody," I said.

I felt an urgent tug on my arm from Grady.

"Mama, look!"

Sentinels were moving toward us from opposite directions on the promenade—two on the left, one on the right. They were running.

I twisted my ring. The Sentinels halted on either side of us and stood at attention.

"Cute. I like their obeisance. What are we waiting for, Tin Man? Let's go."

"First, we must get something in the Southwest Tower," Usher said. "It is necessary."

* * *

We moved along the promenade through a revolving door, into an arcade decorated with images of people and labs. Three of the Sentinels followed. The fourth stayed on the promenade near the entrance.

Lights flickered half-heartedly as we walked out of the arcade and into a courtyard-lobby, settling into a dim illumination. The place stank of mold. Water streamed from a broken skylight in the Dome's metal ceiling 20 feet above.

I followed Usher to a pillar in the center of the lobby, partly hidden in the dim light.

As we approached, I recognized a titanium plaque with a Blackbird Empathics logo. "Was this the prototype for Baton Rouge?"

"It was more than that," Usher said.

The robot didn't seem to mind the drip of water onto its metal thorax. It stood with one foot planted in a puddle and the other crushing a discarded can.

I felt the weight of the day as my adrenaline rush subsided. We were in the lion's den, but the lion had been declawed. Or had it? I was nervous.

I squatted on the floor, gathering the children next to me as we watched Usher circling the plaque, emitting a sound I could feel with my body but barely detected with my ears. A ring of light flared around the circumference of the logo.

The robot then touched different birds with its hand. The sequence was very long, and I lost count. I guessed the number of presses: two hundred thirty-three. A prime number. A Fibonacci. The number of steps in Knightly's Baton Rouge memorial. The number of alphabetic characters in Knightly's poem. The number of bio-contact pores in the ring. But the presses were very specific. Could they encode the poem? Was that the context?

When Usher completed the sequence, there was a click, and it lifted off a piece of the logo—a black bird—and showed it to me.

It was different from what I saw in Baton Rouge. "I don't see the binary pattern," I said.

"The memorial plaque was a decoy. Henri knew they would focus on it and think it was the key to everything." It snapped the piece onto its chest, fitting a nub on the back into a hole where it stuck like a badge. The robot's black eyes blinked red for a moment, and its voice and mannerisms changed.

"There are three keys that activate the badge: something I know—a sequence of presses; something I have—this key; and something I am."

"What are you?" I said.

It answered indirectly, tapping the badge with its fist, like a Roman pledge of fealty. "The key unlocks emotions and bodily senses. I am nearly complete."

The black eyes flickered again, and it swayed, as if catching its balance.