Found in London

By Aston Var

The unimaginable happens when a pair of high school teens let loose their prized class project. A fashionable humanoid robot worthy of the highest levels of admiration. Taking on a mind of its own, their machines sets off on a course of its own that will eventually lead to internationally renowned incidents of immense proportions!

• Language: English
• Publisher: El Chupacabra Independent
• Release date: May 17, 2014
• ISBN: 9781310801648

Aston Var

Aston Var has written five novels. Enjoying family and spending time with his wonderful wife and sons, he’s always on the lookout for their next adventure. Author of The Amazing Story of Billy Jim Hill, Ancient Youth, Found in London, The Emblem Rock, and Total Ascendance. Find paperback editions and discover more of Aston Var's adventures at www.astonvar.com.

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Found in London

A Story of Sentient Ambition

Written by Aston Var

© 2014-2016 ECI

Third Edition, License Notes

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Table of Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Epilogue

Chapter 1

Put her down. Unnecessarily soft-spoken words were the only method of communication Michael Tanner could think of at the moment as he continued to try reasoning with the machine.

Just put her down. He said emphasizing the point as his mind replayed events of the week in a vain struggle to think of a solution to the problem that lay before him. Looking at the thing, which had by then taken a fancy to fashionable designer clothing, he wondered for a moment if all of the inexplicable actions could be explained by a bug. A series of bugs, he decided, was more likely.

The crowds and scores of people gathering around them were, of course, far less interested in the design of the aberration and with growing intensity began to shout and scream slogans at the thing.

Whether or not the crowd knew that the thing was a thing, was of little concern to Michael at the moment. A near perfect replica of the image of man, the thing didn’t look unlike any number of men in the crowd, or anywhere for that matter. Few keen observers may have realized that the generally considered handsome man before them was without doubt - inhuman.

Demanding the immediate release of the young woman that was held high over the edge of the bridge, the audience continued with the ineffective yells that would be forever lost within the machine that had neither the instructions, nor interest in their pleas.

On the bridge! The girl in the carbon nano-fiber hands of the machine added before the commands her best friend and laboratory partner had just given the thing were carried out. Looking down, she could make out the ripples and breaks in the water that defined what would most certainly be a fatal fall.

Right! Put her down on the bridge - not in the river! Michael responded loudly. A sensation of relief washed over him, happy the machine didn’t respond to the first set of orders.

An otherwise normal dawn graced the scene on the bridge that autumn morning, complete with blue sky complementing a brilliantly lit early morning sun. The welcomed crisp and cool air ushered in by a breeze of turning seasons, was quickly turning into a day that would not soon be forgotten by people around the world.

The usual television morning talk shows were interrupted with live coverage of the crowds and police vehicles surrounding the poor girl gripped precariously over the East river, held hostage by the machine she’d worked on for so long to help build.

Reporters began arriving shortly after the first patrol cars, which had arrived just after the first lawyers, who were somehow - perhaps guided by ESP, on the scene well before anyone in the media was notified.

The live streams were coming through clearly as angles from the helicopters were switched between that of angles on different points from the ground. People in offices everywhere turned their attention to the breaking news as it came in through the flat panel high definition displays in break rooms throughout much of civilized world.

Barricades erected by the police were busy enjoying their part-time positions on the bridge, happily doing their job of keeping the crowds at a safe distance as the efficiently run police held a steady line of site down the barrels of their assorted weaponry, which was now aimed at the machine.

Looking at the device, officers of the law and most of the public couldn’t help but admire the elegance and beauty of what many people wouldn’t, at first glance, be able to immediately identify as a machine.

Less than two years had passed from the time the adolescents had decided to as they said, quit talking about it and start making it. What was once a whim, had somehow turned into a monumental debacle, thoroughly unpredictable by anyone involved with the development of the thing. Throughout the process of building, more people than could be counted on two hands were either directly or indirectly involved in some way.

The two lead designers, Michael and his long-time friend Christina Chen would eventually become unwittingly referred to as the so-called masterminds of the device.

Beating at a rate unimaginable by anyone who has never been held over a river by a mentally-ill robot, Christy’s heart felt as though it were lodged in her throat, beginning to deprive her of precious air.

Massive gasps from her lungs every so often ensured her brain would continue to get oxygen. The oxygen delivered to her brain ensured that the communication line to the adrenaline factory, which had been on vacation for the majority of her life, would be put into full production - thus ensuring the chemicals in a state of sudden survival-shock mode to be administered accordingly.

Another glance at the water below caused her stomach and throat to tighten further, reminding her of the death that was foreseen and likely inevitable. Christy tried to shout, but was this time, somehow unable to manage to process the screaming within her mind. Translating her terror to audible yells was not a function, for whatever reason, her brain was interested in performing just then.

Unable to yell or shout, she thought of the ridiculousness of so many people in so many movies screaming in terror. Perhaps a handful of people, herself now included, understood that real terror doesn’t allow a person to produce a sound. She glanced again at the river beneath her, which seemed to be closer and more threatening than earlier.

Certain doom looming, and frozen with fear, the world as she knew in her field of vision began to grow dim. Beginning from the outermost of her peripheral vision, the darkness crept its way to the center of her field of view. With the cocktail of brain induced adreno-endorphin mixtures pumping rapidly through her veins, parading throughout the extremities, she had since lost any feeling in her feet and legs, along with most of her body.

The burning sensation beneath her left wrist was the only remaining physical feeling her mind allowed her to feel. In the event of a loss of that sensation in her wrist were to occur, she would know that it was at that time that the emotionally unstable machine had let go. And she dreaded that happening.

Not necessarily a religious person, at the moment, Christy caught herself praying earnestly for her life.

It was that sensation in her left wrist that connected her to reality as it was just then. In any other place at any other time, the pain and burning would be intolerable, but she welcomed it as the machine gripped tightly.

Christy began to wonder how long she could endure, before surrendering to the impending darkness. Fainting wasn’t an option she wanted to consider, but somehow it held a frontline position with most of the thousands of thoughts bombarding her mind.

Each absurdly short and detrimentally rapid breath garnered another moment of time for the young woman. Breathe Christy. The thought that rose above all others offered her a brief period of relief as she closed her eyes focusing on the one thing that mattered more dearly than anything to her at the moment. Oxygen.

Somehow the resiliency of her youth afforded the ability to, although stuttered; draw a longer and deeper breath. Concentrating on the new breathing project, Christy let go of the distractions caused by the commotion around her, her current predicament, and for a moment felt relatively good.

She felt the burning pain leave her wrist as though mercilessly released from the agony of the situation. Relaxation and calm had replaced the fear and anxiety in her mind. In a moment of peace she opened her eyes just long enough to enjoy the moment.

Within the amount of time the masterfully crafted gears within her watch had to rotate the next tick of the second-hand, her eyes pointed upward to see the hand of the machine as it opened, unleashing her from the once appreciated grip. She literally felt her heart stop, or thought so at least.

Remembering an argument she had with the fabricator of the fingers, her eyes fixed on the nanotech-driven hands as gravity began its job accompanied by the air she distinctly felt moving in the wrong direction. No longer in control, her brain enacted its last fail-safe procedure as everything went dark.

An audible gasp went throughout the crowd at the sight of the girl falling toward the river. For a moment on that bridge, across the nation, throughout living rooms, and in offices everywhere - time stood still.

Michael’s mind would forever be imprinted with the image of his friend, as her limp body was released from the absurdly stylish machine. Why would it choose Kenneth Cole? He thought, not really understanding or being able to control which thoughts did or did not take place at that moment.

During that period, when time ceased to exist, he found his eyes examining the peculiar machine that he had built. Most of the machine’s surface consisted of a modern material, constructed from carbon fiber nanotechnology. The interesting skin-like material, developed by a small Japanese technical concern, completed the face of the machine and moved brilliantly over the internal structure.

Without giving a hint of the true nature of the device, the quality of skin made in Japan would be prized by the most finicky of plastic surgeons.

Made of the same material, he remembered looking at the reflection of light on the fingers as the inconspicuous robot turned its hand palm down in a smooth human-like fashion. Michael couldn’t help just for a brief moment - marvel at the fluidity of motion the machine exhibited. Both of the designers had ultimately decided that gears and levers of traditional machines were too clunky and slow, requiring as much maintenance as an aging washing machine in a coin-op laundromat.

Their design had replaced the tradition of gears and joints connected by wires with a series of nano-magnets that had no need of being connected, offering supreme movement. Without wires or gears, friction became a non-factor. The details of the design were lovingly and completely documented by the team, available to no-one outside of the group and supremely guarded.

Every major, minor, and hidden joint were connected this way, the result of which enabled each joint to quietly float and move effortlessly, as the machine’s internal software guided the signals, impulses and instructions to be delivered throughout the creation. Banks of customized high-end strontium processors were fixed in the chest allowing the software to do the trillions upon trillions of calculations each second, necessary to keep the machine going.

It was the fluid motion of the design that would allow for effortless movement and ability to blend in with its more, biological, counter-parts. Without a close inspection, a person would assuredly mistake the thing for human.

Knowing that the machine had been given the initial instructions to do, say and act everything as humanly as possible, the young designers had decided to program an inherent learning and evolution system as their way of experimental study with artificial intelligence. The machine’s instructions were to learn based on experience, to attempt to predict future experiences and adjust accordingly. Both Michael and Christy never dreamed that the evolution of their artificial intelligence would happen as rapidly as it did.

After only two days of testing, it became apparent at how rapidly the machine, which they named Buddy, was advancing. What it considered sluggish and human movement had evolved into something unknown to the human race. Something that would most easily be described as alien, the machine taught itself to climb stairs. In the first set of trials it handled the same as any human - one foot in front of the other, as it was programmed to do.

After three trials, the magnets connecting the joints of the toes, feet, knees, hips and beyond moved like something that reminded them of a slinky going backwards. After the first ten trials, the ingeniously designed series of nano-magnets moved the digits and appendages so fast that only a blur could be seen as their handsome robot rapidly ascended the stairs of their commons building in the university dorm that they were granted access to, an impressive feat for high school seniors.

A two-story flight of stairs in the first trial was completed in just over twelve seconds, nearly the same as an average person would in prime condition. Their final trial had the machine completing the same task in under a tenth of a second.

Michael briefly thought of Buddy’s development as he watched Christy’s limp body fall toward the frigid river.

Chapter 2

Vacuuming the floor of room 213, the woman at the Hope Faith Hotel in west El Paso was reminded once again of the timeless art of motel destruction inherent in so many senior aged high school students. There were at least six she thought she remembered, that had in their infinite wisdom, broken exactly two chairs, one window and one desk.

With water damage to the bathroom, burns to the upholstery and various holes placed in walls, the financial amount of damage to the room was yet to be determined. The state and condition of the two beds in the room would, at the woman’s preference, rather be forgotten.

Unharmed, the television broadcasted the scene from the bridge in New York. The woman watched along with the rest of the country that morning with as much interest as a hotel attendant from El Paso could possibly have.

She paid little attention to the bizarre remote control found between a pile of empty pizza boxes and nest of crushed beer cans as she stored it in one of several small compartments in the cleaning cart that she had used for more than eleven years as a room attendant for the hotel.

Though the strange gadget appeared as if it may be valuable, it would eventually make its way to the lost-and-found, located in the hotel manager’s office on the first floor. An honest woman would continue to go about her day cleaning, the same as so many before.

Around twenty miles north of the motel, a modern black Cadillac CTS sports wagon sat idle - not idling - but parked in a lot that was usually reserved for long-haul trucking patrons. The kind of truck stop only found in America and parts of Canada.

With traffic flowing from California to New York on the Great Country’s Interstate Highway system, it was a