Jeweled Heart

Jeweled Heart

By Dimitri Villegas

In all of my time spent in this world, I have found that nothing is more frightening than being caught between a mother and her own.

Anonymous

            They had switched out the coffee in the break room. Roger's tongue hadn't tasted the difference, but his stomach did. It gurgled with every step he took on his way down the hallway towards his office. He had his mind set on one thing and one thing only; get to his private restroom before he turned his pants into an adult diaper.

            "Hey chief!" A voice called out from down the hallway. Roger's grip on the doorknob tightened for an instant, and then released. He made sure not to do the same with his sphincter.

            "Yeah Paul?" Roger said, not even having to look in that direction. He knew the sound of Paul's clomping footsteps.

            "I just got off the call."

            "The call?"

            "Have you not heard about what's going on?"

            Roger sighed. "No, I haven't. Can this wait?"

            Paul looked over his shoulder, down the hallway where the other deputies were at, then turned back, a sullen look on his face. "Let's go in your office."

            The two entered, with Roger flipping on the light switch.

            "Jesus," Roger yelped, nearly releasing his bowels all over the floor. His stomach gurgled in revolt.

            A maid had been in his office, dusting his almost barren bookshelves in the dark.

            "Do you not turn on the lights?" Roger asked her.

            The maid stiffly turned to face Roger and Paul. "No, they aren't necessary, but if you would like me to turn them on, I will." Her face was plain: no make-up, hair tied back in a tight bun, and steely blue eyes that didn't blink at all.

            "Yeah, go ahead and do that," Paul said, "and can you smile?"

            The maid did, revealing a set of unnaturally white teeth. The smile was stiff, just like the rest of her, as if she was trying to be natural but failing miserably.

            "No, don't do that," Roger said as he stepped around his desk, cautiously seating himself down into his leather chair, "just keep on doing what you're doing." His gut gave out another rowdy blurp, which he tried to settle down by putting a hand on his stomach. Paul sat down in the chair opposite of Roger, unaware of the battle raging inside his boss' intestines. "Okay, so what the hell are you yabbing on about? What phone call?"

            "The foster parent," Paul said, shifting in his seat, passing nervous glances at the maid, who had now moved on to cleaning the window.

            Roger didn't pay any mind to Paul's uneasiness. "What about her, what's her name again?"

            "Karel."

            "And the orphan?"

            "Her name is Jem," Paul said, beginning to rifle through the papers he had brought with him.

            Roger looked at Paul, and then waved his hand, "Details, Paul. Come on now."

            "Oh, sorry. She's six years old. She's only been in foster care for a few months."

            "Lost both parents?"

            "Only had a mother to begin with as far as the papers say," Paul said, still digging through his documents. He had a nervous tick; his upper lip would often violently twitch whenever he was concentrating. It would cause his mustache to bounce up and down, almost making it look like a dancing caterpillar. "Says here, her mother died just a few months back," he said, leaning forward to hand Roger the document.           

            Roger waved it away, not because he wasn't interested in it, but rather because he didn't want to risk leaning forward. The maid finished with the window then walked over to the doorway leading to his private restroom. His eyes followed her enviously. "Okay, so what's so special about her?"

            "The girl?"

            "Yeah."

            Paul shrugged, "I dunno, I guess she just got lucky that she got picked."

            "No," Roger interrupted. He wanted to call Paul a dumbass, but restrained himself. "The lady doing the adopting, what's so special about her­–

            "It," Paul interrupted.

            "It?"

            "Karel, it's a robot, one of the newer models."

             Right on cue, the maid walked out of the restroom, her face still locked in the same blank expression as before.

            "You mean like her?" Roger said, jerking a thumb at the cleaning bot.

            "Yeah, but like I said, Karel is a newer model."

            "Maid," Roger said with authority, "get the hell out of here."

            The cleaning bot froze in place, then swiveled to face Roger. "When would you like me to return?" Her computerized voice chirped.

            "I'll call you," Roger said. He had completely forgotten about his bubbling bowels. The maid left the office, gently closing the door behind her. “You mean to tell me a robot managed to adopt a child?”

            "Chief, I mean no disrespect when I say this, but have you not been watching the news?"

            Roger shrugged.

            "It was a pretty big deal," Paul continued, "went to the supreme court and everything. Karel had a sound case, explained that there wasn't any law that forbade a child being adopted by a robot. All that mattered was that the child would be well taken care of."

            "A robot managed to convince the supreme court that it could take care of a child?"

            "Like I said, it's a newer model. Scientists really need to cool it. Pretty soon those bots will be in nursing homes. By that time, they'll be taking care of us. Imagine that, a cold mechanical hand wiping crap out of your wrinkly ass."

            Roger furled his brow.  Then a moment of realization came over him.

            "You mean to tell me that Karel was the person who called me earlier requesting us to escort her to the house?"

            "Not a person, and yes, that was it earlier."

            "Quit that it shit," Roger grunted.

            "Sorry," Paul said, looking down nervously at his papers, mustache doing its dance again. "She called again just a bit ago, requesting more escorts."

            "Okay, when are we taking her to the house?"

            "Mansion," Paul said, looking up from his papers.

            "Mansion?"

            "Yeah, the first thing Karel did when it got its freedom was play the stock markets. Got millions within a few months. It–

            Roger grunted.

            "She, outperformed every stock broker, U.S. and international."

            "Jesus," Roger mumbled, harking back to his phone call with her earlier in the day. "She sounded just like a human."

            "I told you, these robots are getting fancier. It's scary. I mean, at least you can tell that that one isn't human," Paul said, pointing a finger out the door, where the cleaning bot had gone through earlier.

            Roger rubbed sweat from his forehead, "What in the world does a robot as smart as Karel want with a child?"

            "They asked it, uhh, her that during the trial. She explained that she had ran out of tasks that a normal person would want to achieve in their life, except for one."

            "Have a child?"

            "Bingo," Paul said, pointing a finger at Roger. Right on the money.

            "And the judges bought that?"

            "Yup."

            "Jesus," Roger sighed, "what was the crowd's reaction?"

            Paul leaned back in his chair and rested his hands on the top of his head. "They were pissed. They rioted."

            "Explains why Karel wants escorts. We're going to have to bring a lot of officers with us. We're more than likely going to have to make a perimeter around her home. Prep yourself for a long night Paul, and tell the boys too."

            "I already got confirmation from Juker and Rockfort county that they'll be joining us tonight," Paul said, standing up to exit the office.

            "Good, we're going to need them."

            Paul stopped at the door, hand on the knob, "Chief, why in the hell are we about to go through all this trouble just to protect some damned smart robot?"

            "Think of it this way," Roger grunted, also standing up (slowly), "we're not protecting the robot. We're protecting that kid."

            There was a knock on the door.

            "I'm done cleaning the headquarters. Do you want me to do anything else?" The cleaning bot asked through the closed door.

            Roger's stomach gurgled again. "Go throw out that new coffee and make a note for the grocery bot to switch back to the coffee we had before."

            "Okay."

***

           

            Bottles were thrown into the side of the brick mansion. They crashed, exploding into hundreds of shards. They glittered white and silver as they fell towards the ground, first reflecting the moonlight in mid-flight, but then they shined crimson red on the dirt, reflecting the fire of the torches the mob carried.

            Cries of anger and disgust filled the chill December air. The police did their best to hold off the mob. They screamed through their megaphones and waved their tasers, but still, the mob persisted. The crowd filled the street for blocks, spilling out into alleyways, front yards, backyards, and anywhere else a person could stand. They were standing. And yelling.

            Karel watched from the second floor window, calmly tapping a finger at her chin. She didn't feel fear or anger towards the mob; she was incapable of actual feelings. But still, her processors did tell her that it was ironic that the crowds were using actual flame torches during their protests.

            In her other hand, she held a glass of water that she was incapable of actually drinking. She kept it with her though, often dumping out the water if it became dusty, cleaning the glass, and then refilling it with fresh water from the tap. She wanted to appear more human-like to Jem, so Karel would often take a sip from the glass, holding the water in her throat and then later discarding it when she wasn't in the presence of Jem.

            The young girl was ecstatic to finally get away from the orphanage, but her feelings of excitement nearly vanished when she was told that Karel was a robot. A process went off in Karel's robot equivalent of a mind: displeasure. She felt displeasure at the woman who had told Jem that Karel was a robot. As immoral as it would have seemed, Karel would have rather waited for Jem to grow older before revealing that her foster parent was actually a robot.

            She sighed. Sighing was another human action that she had added to her list to appear more normal. So far that list had grown to four hundred and seventy three items since meeting Jem, with items such as breathing and blinking being some of the more high priority tasks.

            A bottle crashed dangerously close to the window she was looking out of, and yet, she didn't flinch.

            "Oh, that's another," Karel whispered softly, adding flinching to the ever growing list.

            Standing there at the window, she envisioned more bottles flying towards the window so she could practice flinching. She couldn't quite get the facial expression right. She giggled to herself (item 214 on the list) then decided to set aside some CPU time to scan the Internet on videos of how to flinch. It would take some time to gather data; it wasn't like there were "How To" videos on flinching.

            The power to the mansion flickered out, and for a brief moment, Karel tried to decide on whether or not flinching was an appropriate reaction to the darkness. She pushed that thought process to the side and looked around, assessing what the possibilities of a break-in were now that the security system would be down. After factoring in the police presence and reconfirming that she had locked and bolted each and every door, Karel came to the conclusion that the chances of an intruder were barely above zero percent. She flinched at the non-zero number that sat in one of her memory banks, but soon realized that there wasn't anything she would be able to do to bring the number lower until the power came back on.

            "Karel?" A voice called from down the hall.

            She immediately stopped whatever processes she was running and quickly jogged out of her study room, glass of water still in hand. Earlier, she had added "not jogging in the house" to her list after a brief discussion with Jem about how running in the house should be prohibited. "But it's more efficient," Karel had argued.

            "It's weird," Jem had counter-argued.

            Weird or not, now was a time that warranted jogging. She continued down the hallway, bare feet coming down lightly and noiselessly on lusciously thick carpet. "Yes, Jem?" She called out as she neared the bedroom door.

            She stepped through the doorway and glanced to where Jem was. The young child was still lying down in her overly large bed. The room was pitch-black from the lack of power, but Karel could still use her night-vision to see.

            "Karel, it's really dark, and I'm scared," Jem said.

            Her sensors could tell that Jem was on the verge of crying. She sat down the glass of water on the bedside nightstand, turned away from Jem, and then lifted her blouse. She opened her chest cavity, revealing a mess of wires and other miscellaneous plugs and gadgetry. In the center of her chest was an orb that her body used to store excess power. It glowed a bright blue, instantly illuminating the part of the bedroom that Karel had been facing, drawing an "ooo" from Jem.

            Karel twisted it, and removed it from her chest.  After closing her chest compartment and pulling down her blouse, Karel turned to face Jem, glowing heartlight in hand.

            "Here you go darling," Karel said softly, "I've got a new nightlight for you, and this one won't ever run out, even if the mean people outside turn off the power."

            Jem sat up in her lavish bed, eyes wide in awe. She reached out for the heartlight, and then pulled away. "Is it hot?"

            Karel took a few microseconds to herself in order to gather data from her hand sensors in order to determine if the heartlight was "hot" or if it was "cold". She shook her head. "No sweetie, it won't hurt you, here," she said as she reached out with the heartlight.

            Jem took it in her hands, the heartlight bathing her face in a warm blue light. "It's really pretty," she said.

            "I'm glad you like it," Karel said. Her sensors picked up shouts from the protestors outside. Jem wouldn't be able to hear what they were saying, but Karel could. She paused, head slightly angled upwards.

***

            "It's a fucking abomination!" A man yelled, pressing into the riot shield that Paul was holding. The shove caught him off guard, rocking him back on his heels and nearly tipping him over.

            "Back up!" Paul grunted, shoving back with the shield. He looked over to Roger, who also had his hands full shoving off an irate woman who was trying to climb over his riot shield. "Roger!" Paul cried out. The police chief turned his head and showed a facial expression of what. "Gas?"

            Roger shook his head. Paul silently cursed to himself. If they didn't bring out the tear gas soon, the crowd was going to overwhelm them. The man pressed into Paul's shield again, "IT CAN'T CARE FOR A CHILD!"

            Paul pushed back.

            "I'm going to gut it!" The same man yelled. Even from behind the shield, Paul could smell the whiskey on the man's breath. The man's eyes were sunken in his head, dark circles resting below his bottom eyelids. There was snot running down his nose, and with each crystallized exhale, he sprayed snot and spittle at the shield.

            "Back off!" Paul yelled, rearing back to give another shove.

            The drunken man saw the shove coming. He grabbed the top edge of the shield and pulled with Paul's push, yanking the shield out of Paul's grip.

            Paul only had a single second of awareness before the man landed a clenched fist into his jaw.

            The blow caused Paul to bite off the tip of his tongue, chipped several of his teeth, and knocked him clean out. That last thing he would remember of the night would be the sensation of blood pooling in the back of his throat.

            None of the other police officers noticed the man step over the grounded Paul and slip past their line. Not even Roger noticed.

***

           

            But from the bedroom, Karel noticed. She had heard yelling, had heard the punch, and was now hearing the man attempt to kick his way through the side door of the east wing.

            Karel picked up her glass of water from the nightstand, and took a long sip, completely emptying the glass. She swallowed, but held the water in her throat.

            "I'm going to head downstairs to get more water, do you want any darling?"

            There was a muffled crash as the man finally managed to kick his way through the side door.

            "No, I'm fine Karel. But when you get back, can you tell me a story?"

            She could hear the man thrashing around in the parlor. And then, she heard him find the staircase.

            "I can do that," Karel answered, giving Jem a gentle pat on the top of her head. She suppressed the urge to jog out of the room, and instead calmly walked out, empty glass in hand. As soon as she exited the room and had the door closed, Karel bent over and allowed the water she held in her throat to neatly pour out of her mouth. It soaked into the carpet. She would have to remember to dry it after she dealt with the intruder. Now that she was out of sight from Jem, she jogged down the hallway.

            The jog turned into a run when she heard the man stumbling around on the second floor of the east wing. Despite the capabilities of her sensors, she couldn't tell if the man was stumbling around because of the darkness, or because he was intoxicated.

            Either way, Karel was 100% sure she would be able to handle him. She had run the test four times. Five by the time she turned the corner and exited the west wing.

            She crossed into the second floor of the lobby, passing a quick glance down the stairs to make sure the main doors were still shut. As she passed by into the east wing, the lights flickered back on, first flashing on and off for a few times, and then remaining lit.

            Good, Karel thought. Some unknown part of her wanted the intruder to be able to see her clearly.

            She turned the corner that led to the east wing hallway, and there, standing thirty feet away from her, was the man.

            He was unarmed, wearing baggy blue jeans, a worn woolen sweater, and a pair of sneakers that may have once been white but were now a dingy brown.

            "Huh, you bitch," he slurred, taking a few tentative steps towards Karel.

            She didn't move. Instead, she squared her feet and left her arms at her sides, empty water glass still lightly held between her thumb and forefinger.

            "I'll gut you," he continued, "I'll pull them wires out of your stomach and wrap them around your neck."

            From about fifteen feet away, the man raised a clench fist, the same he had used to knock Paul unconscious, and broke into a full out sprint.

            "Die!" He yelled as he brought his fist down as hard as he could humanly manage into Karel's forehead. She didn't flinch.

            There was a loud crunch.

           

            And the man crumbled to his knees, clenching his broken first with his other hand. All four of his knuckles were visibly busted, jagged bone protruding from the skin. Blood oozed down his arm, soaking the sleeve of his sweater. He looked up at Karel, tears beginning to seep out of his bloodshot eyes. His bottom lip quivered, and it sounded either like he was about to cry, or was about to say something. Karel couldn't determine which.

            "What were you expecting to happen?" Karel asked coldly. She tightly clenched the fingers that were holding the glass, shattering it, sending tiny pieces of glass shrapnel everywhere, causing the man to flinch.

            The power to the mansion cut out again, leaving Karel and the now crippled intruder alone in the darkness. 

           

***

            "Where's your glass of water?" Jem asked as Karel reentered the room. She was still sitting up in bed, hugging the heartlight close to her chest.

            Karel's sensors picked up more yelling from the mob outside, but she didn't hear any more people attempting to break in.

            She's not fit to be a mother!

            "Decided I didn't want it," Karel answered. "Did you still want me to tell you a story?"

            "Yes!"

            It's a fucking monster! It can't care for a child!

            Karel smiled and then closed the bedroom door.  She did another calculation on what the probability of another intrusion would be, and found that it was closer to zero than it had been before. With that knowledge, she completely turned off her outdoor auditory sensors.

            She sat by Jem's side, "What would you like to hear?"

            "Umm, little red riding hood, do you know that one?" Jem asked.

            Karel scanned the Internet, finding thousands of different renditions of the tale. Her algorithms sifted through the stories, finding the best version of the story that Karel believed Jem would find enjoyable. Her scan finally settled on one rendition, a rendition that Karel's processes were 100% positive that Jem would find favorable. "Yes, actually I do," she answered within a fraction of a second.

            She recounted the tale, pitching her voice up and down along with the rhythm of the story, lowering it down to a growl when the wolf made an appearance, and adding a shrill playful cry when the wolf made its attempt to gobble up little red riding hood. Jem smiled and giggled.

             The story ended, and Karel showed her empty palms to Jem, another gesture that Karel had recently added to her list. "There, did you enjoy that?" Karel asked. She was certain that Jem would answer positively.

            "Yeah, I did!" Jem said aloud.

            Karel smiled and saved the story into one of her special purpose memory banks for further use.

            "But," Jem continued.

            Karel flinched.

            "It's not how my mom used to tell it," Jem finished, tears building in the corners of her eyes.

            Karel was awestruck. She was certain that her chosen rendition would be perfect. She scanned the story back and forth, wondering if she had made an error, but no, her algorithm was correct. A feeling filled her sensors, the closest that she could ever feel to anxiety. She scanned the Internet again, hoping that somehow within the thousands of little red riding hood tales was the version that Jem's deceased mother had told.

            But there weren't any algorithms at Karel's disposal that could discern whether or not a version was the one that Jem's mother had told. She quickly rerouted most processor power to try and piece together a program that would find it, but no matter what, the program would return the same inconclusive results. Karel wanted to continue searching and building, but she saw a tear streak down Jem's face.

            Karel halted her search, and instead used a delicate finger to wipe away the tear.

            "I'm sorry," Karel whispered, drying her finger on her blouse, "I don't know how your mother told the tale, but–"

            Karel scanned the Internet again, amassing millions of fairy tales, filtering out unfavorable stories and highlighting ones that were popular around the world. She pieced together common ideas and motifs, examined the heroes and heroines of the tales, and built upon the magical worlds that the stories contained.

            Her processors used all of these common elements and created a story that blended together every positive value in a fairytale. Karel had created a unique story, and for the first time in her existence, she wasn't exactly sure if it was favorable or not.

            "–I do know this one tale that you might like."

            In the glow of the blue heartlight, Karel recounted the brand new fairytale for the first time ever to Jem as the mob raged outdoors.

           

           

Note from the author

            I would like to thank Clarissa Acevedo for her work on the cover, as well as her advice as I stumbled through story after story.

            I would also like to thank the people over at http://www.reddit.com/r/writingprompts for inspiring me to write everyday. Without the people there, this story would have never came to fruition.