Featured

In a word: Incline

When you first think of this word, it is with a slippery slope in mind.

I’ve been on a few of those in my time.

And while we’re on the subject, those inclines measured in degrees are very important if you want a train to get up and down the side of a mountain.

For the train, that’s an incline plane, the point where traction alone won’t get the iron horse up the hill.

Did I say ‘Iron Horse’?  Sorry, regressed there, back to the mid-1800s in the American West for a moment.

It’s not that important when it comes to trucks and cars, and less so if you like four-wheel driving; getting up near-vertical mountainsides often present a welcome challenge to the true enthusiast

But for the rest of us, not so much if you find yourself sliding in reverse uncontrollably into the bay.  I’m sure it’s happened more than once.

Then…

Are you inclined to go?

A very different sort of incline, ie to be disposed towards an attitude or desire.

An inclination, maybe, not to go four-wheel driving?

There is another, probably more obscure use of the word incline, and that relates to an elevated geological formation.  Not the sort of reference that crops up in everyday conversation at the coffee shop.

But, you never know.  Try it next time you have coffee and see what happens.

Featured

Writing about writing a book – Day 2

Hang about.  Didn’t I read somewhere you need to plan your novel, create an outline setting the plot points, and flesh out the characters?

I’m sure it didn’t say, sit down and start writing!

Time to find a writing pad, and put my thinking cap on.

I make a list, what’s the story going to be about? Who’s going to be in it, at least at the start?

Like a newspaper story, I need a who, what, when, where, and how.

Right now.

 

I pick up the pen.

 

Character number one:

Computer nerd, ok, that’s a little close to the bone, a computer manager who is trying to be everything at once, and failing.  Still me, but with a twist.  Now, add a little mystery to him, and give him a secret, one that will only be revealed after a specific set of circumstance.  Yes, I like that.

We’ll call him Bill, ex-regular army, a badly injured and repatriated soldier who was sent to fight a war in Vietnam, the result of which had made him, at times, unfit to live with.

He had a wife, which brings us to,

Character number two:

Ellen, Bill’s ex-wife, an army brat and a General’s daughter, and the result of one of those romances that met disapproval for so many reasons.  It worked until Bill came back from the war, and from there it slowly disintegrated.  There are two daughters, both by the time the novel begins, old enough to understand the ramifications of a divorce.

Character number three:

The man who is Bill’s immediate superior, the Services Department manager, a rather officious man who blindly follows orders, a man who takes pleasure in making others feel small and insignificant, and worst of all, takes the credit where none is due.

Oops, too much, that is my old boss.  He’ll know immediately I’m parodying him.  Tone it down, just a little, but more or less that’s him.  Last name Benton.  He will play a small role in the story.

Character number four:

Jennifer, the IT Department’s assistant manager, a woman who arrives in a shroud of mystery, and then, in time, to provide Bill with a shoulder to cry on when he and Ellen finally split, and perhaps something else later on.

More on her later as the story unfolds.

So far so good.

What’s the plot?

Huge corporation plotting to take over the world using computers?  No, that’s been done to death.

Huge corporation, OK, let’s stop blaming the corporate world for everything wrong in the world.  Corporations are not bad people, people are the bad people.  That’s a rip off cliché, from guns don’t kill people, people kill people!  There will be guns, and there will be dead people.

There will be people hiding behind a huge corporation, using a part of their computer network to move billions of illegally gained money around.  That’s better.

Now, having got that, our ‘hero’ has to ‘discover’ this network, and the people behind it.

All we need now is to set the ball rolling, a single event that ‘throws a cat among the pigeons’.

Yes, Bill is on holidays, a welcome relief from the problems of work.  He dreams of what he’s going to do for the next two weeks.  The phone rings.  Benton calling, the world is coming to an end, the network is down.  He’s needed.  A few terse words, but he relents.

Pen in hand I begin to write.

 

© Charles Heath 2016-2019

NaNoWriMo – April – 2026 – Day 24

I was writing Chapter 29 when I suddenly had a bad feeling. You know the sort of feeling you get, you’ve forgotten something, or there wasn’t a lead into an event which will feel like it came from nowhere…

I’m having one of those moments.

Damn.

I’ve forgotten something.

So, I stopped editing, brought up the last eight chapters and started reading.

No, nothing I’ve forgotten. But there is something.

No point going on. This has to run around in my mind for a bit while doing something completely different, like painting a ceiling.

True, I’m in the middle of painting the dining room ceiling and putting it off to get on with the project. The project has hit a speed hump, so it’s back to the painting.

Halfway through the roof, it comes to me.

A basic error is not making sure all the points are covered in the story; otherwise, the reader will say, “ok, you said that back in Chapter 18, and now, why haven’t you realised that something’s going to happen because of your negligence?”

I know what it is.

And it will require another chapter.

But first, I have to finish the painting.

A to Z – April – 2026 – U

U is for – Undercover

…

I think I had reached the point where I had so fully immersed myself in the role that I no longer knew who or what I had been before.

I had said it wouldn’t happen, and they said it would, and as time passed, they could see it, and I could not.

The gig was over.

The message came over the phone in their cryptic code, devised so that if anyone else saw it, it would look just like the title of a book, which it was.

“Where Eagles Dare”.

I had dared to fly higher than the mythical Icarus, but they said it was too close to the sun.

They were right.

Ballinger, the boss, was seated opposite me, gun in lap, giving me his most menacing look.  He didn’t have to try too hard; the result of many beatings when he was a boy had given his face the look of a world-weary boxer who had to retire early.

Ever since I first met him, he had always been a man of short patience.

“I really am disappointed, Spence.  Really disappointed.”

He glanced sideways at one of his henchmen, an equally scary gorilla called Lefty.  He had another name, but I couldn’t pronounce it.  Neither could anyone else.

Lefty said, as was expected of him, “Really disappointed.”

I was not sure if it was to emphasise Ballinger’s disappointment, or that he could parrot words on command like a dutiful henchman.

I would ask why, but I knew.  There had been a ten-minute diatribe about how another of his henchmen, Wally, had discovered I was an undercover cop.  He didn’t say how he came upon this interesting discovery.

“I was disappointed you didn’t promote me a month back, but I didn’t tie you up and express disappointment.”

Lefty slapped me so hard it knocked me sideways to the floor.

It hurt.

“Don’t be insolent to the boss,” Lefty said.

Another sideways glance from Ballinger at Lefty, and he picked me back up.

After shaking my head, I said, “You’re wrong, by the way.  Do I look smart enough to be an undercover cop?”

“There aren’t any smart cops, Spence, so you fit the bill perfectly.  What did you hope to gain?”

“Let’s cut the charade.  How the hell could anybody ever assume I’m anything but just another dumb schmuck on your payroll?  Seriously?  A cop?  I’ve seen what cops make, and I couldn’t survive on a cop’s salary.  It’s why there are corrupt cops.  You know that as well as I do, you’ve got about half a dozen on the payroll.”

“How do you know that?”

“You don’t exactly make it a secret.   I’m sure their bosses know who they’re consorting with.  Besides, when I got dragged into the station after Wally botched the simple job you gave him, and the cops were called, they told me I’d be smart if I walked away.  I’m hoping it wasn’t Wally who’s suggesting I’m a cop simply because they hauled me away for questioning.”

His look confirmed what I already knew.  Wally was working for the cops, and there were rumours that there was an undercover cop in Ballinger’s crew.  Wally was spreading the blame to me to cover his backside after he nearly blew his cover.  Wally was a rank amateur.

“You need to look closer to home.”

That interview with the police, about a week ago, was the first time I’d been back in over six months, the time it had taken to worm my way into the gang, albeit inside, but outside the part that mattered.

At first, they didn’t know who I was and treated me like a hard case, which was what I was portraying.  Then the head of the task force discovered I was in the cells and came to see me.  It hadn’t been like anything I’d expected.

He’d completely lost it.

Ballinger, by comparison, was a nice guy.

I told the head of the task force that keeping up regular contact with him was how they discovered the undercover cop who had preceded me, through a combination of surveillance and crooked cops on the payroll.

I said I wouldn’t get caught, and yet here I was.

There was a commotion outside, a woman loudly arguing with someone outside the door, and then a loud crashing sound.

Tina.

Ballinger’s daughter; very loud, very brassy, very spoilt.

She came into the room and stopped a short distance from her father.

“What are you doing?”

“Dealing with Spence.  He’s an undercover cop.”

She looked at me, then her father, and then she laughed so hard she nearly fell over.  “Spence a cop?  Are you serious, or have you completely lost your mind?”

Lefty said, “Wally reckons he is.”

“Wally is dumb as dog shit, Lefty.  He bungled the job so simple that he’s the one you should shoot.  Spence got caught up in his mess.”

Ballinger looked at her, then Lefty, then me.

“Where’s Wally?”

“You’re asking me where your henchmen are?  He’s probably down at the cop shop spilling his guts and asking for witness protection.  You’re doing just what he wants, wasting your time on the wrong people while he gets away.”

Ballinger glared at Lefty.  “Cut Spence free, then find Wally and kill him.  Now.”

To the rest of the men in the room, “Don’t come back till Wally’s dead.”  He looked at Tina.  “You coming?”

“A word with Spence, then I’m right behind you.”

We both watched him and the men leave.  I flexed my arms and legs to get the circulation flowing, then stood, slightly unsteadily.

“Thanks.”

She shrugged.  “It’s either you or Wally, or both of you.  I like you, Spence, so it better not be you.  OK.”

“I’m too stupid to be playing both sides of the fence, Tina.”

She looked at me with a bemused expression.  “One thing you ain’t, Spence, and that’s stupid.  I don’t miss much, Spence, so don’t let me down.”

I shrugged.  “Count on it.”

…

©  Charles Heath 2026

365 Days of writing, 2026 – 97

Day 97 – Writing Exercise

…

I had been sitting in a chair looking at the inanimate robot that I was told was state-of-the-art, the very best of the best in technology.

And it was extremely scary.

The last memo I had received told me that robots would not be taking over our lives, that they were not going to be that lifelike that we could not tell whether they were human or android, and here was
the epitome of exactly the opposite.

I could not, at a distance of 10 feet, tell that I was not looking at another human.

It was standing, eyes open, looking at me, as if waiting for instructions.

But that had not been the worst of the revelation.

That robot looked exactly like me.

…

I had been summoned to the Central Robotics Institute to attend a demonstration of the latest humanised robot with the latest version of artificial intelligence programming.

About five years before, I had been on the short list for Director of the institute and had it not been for the fact, on the week before the announcement of the new Director, a recording of my comments against fully integrated artificial intelligence into human-like robots surfaced.

It was not a stance I was ashamed to admit I believed in; in fact, I had been campaigning against a Government green paper that set out the Government’s wish list in robotics and what drove them.

The person who got the job was, in a sense, a rival, though for many years, as we both toiled through school, university, and in the commercial sector, we once agreed on limiting AI and robotics.

Until she didn’t.  I guess she wanted the job more than I did and was willing to disavow her beliefs.  That was where our paths diverged, both in work and privately, where our plans to be married and start our own company were over.

I was disappointed, but not surprised.

She had joined the bloc to extoll everything she once hated, and was now actively promoting artificial intelligence as the saviour of mankind.

And I knew, secretly, she and the company she had been working with for nearly five years were tendering for a closed military contract worth trillions of dollars.

It was part of a push by the military to use artificial intelligence to drive a new line of defence weapons, including robot soldiers.

It was the worst nightmare come true; like any new breakthrough in technology, there was always a group of scientists looking to weaponise it.

This was the first prototype.  Fully functional, fully tested, and was about to be shown to the military.

Frances Terries, in a sense, my ex, had called two days before, the first contact we had in nearly five years, and invited me to the test facility, way out in the middle of the desert, far away from the enemy’s prying eyes.

She sent a private jet to fetch me.

When I landed, and she met me on the tarmac, I asked her why she had invited me.  All she said was as the program’s greatest detractor, I would become its greatest fan.

That was a challenge I wasn’t going to turn down.

…

I heard the clucking of heels behind me, and knew Frances was coming.  She would be alone.

She had introduced me to the highest echelons of the company, the men with the money, deep enough pockets to create such a robot.  Names that rarely made the papers, names that were involved in any number of government projects.  She was involved with one,  and I was happy for her.

She was always going to be a success, and had devoted what was necessary to create a unit she had been working on since her days back in University.  In fact, we had both worked on that project, but I had more reservations about what might happen if we succeeded in that.

But we never intended to build it or bring it to life.  I wondered briefly what tipped the scale for her.  I didn’t think it could be as crass as just money or fame.  She had never shown any inclination towards wanting acknowledgement, other than the respect from her peers and contemporaries.

Unless that had changed, too.

She stopped beside me, and I could just smell a hint of her favourite perfume.  Some things didn’t change.

“What do you think?” She asked.

“That you couldn’t stop thinking about me?”

Why else would she build a robot that looked like me?  Perhaps that statement was a little crass even for me.

She laughed.  “Only you could come up with something like that.  There is a lot of you in him.  He even has your name, Steven.”

“Programming?”

“Level 7 AI.  Best yet.  A vocabulary of infinite words.  There’s so much stuff crammed into his memory you could literally ask him anything.”

“Would he have a reason not to become a super soldier?”

“That was not why we built him.” 

She sounded a little indignant, which was a surprise.  Building a lifelike robot for the military wasn’t going to see them as office clerks or blue-collar workers.

“Except the military paid for the research and development.  We both know what is going to happen here.”

“I get the implication, but that is not the purpose of this particular model.”

“Not this particular one, perhaps.”

I could see out of the corner of my eye the frown. She might be thinking that asking me here was a mistake.  She had to know that I couldn’t in all conscience sign off on military robots.

She tried a different tack. “Perhaps they need them to go into space?  The military is also interested in manned space flights to other planets.  They do not have the same limitations as mortal men.”

Possible, but not probable.  I’d seen their green paper, and there weren’t many references to space travel, though the application would be ideal. They could lie dormant for the years it would take to get to the other planets.

“Agreed.  But we still have the problem of building robots that are going to take jobs of normal people.”

“AI is doing that new thing and has for a few years.  This is just a small progression, putting a real face to the interface.”

“You know my views.   Why exactly am I here…”

“To show you that our dream was not a dream, it’s now a reality. You didn’t believe it could be done.  And yet, here it is.”

I didn’t want it to happen.  There’s a difference.  I knew it was inevitable, and I had recently travelled the world to see the remarkable instances of humanoid robots.  But none of them had made them indistinguishable from real humans.

Or more to the point, they didn’t show me.

“Does it work?”

She gave a rather pointed look.  “Of course.”  She looked at the robot.  “Good morning, Steve.”

It turned its head and looked at her.  “Good morning, Miss Frances.” It turned slightly to look at me.  “I am guessing you are Steven Fletcher.  How do you do?”

The polite tone was matched with a quizzical expression.

“Good morning, Steve.  You have to admit, this is a rather curious experience, virtually talking to yourself.”

It was slightly disconcerting.

“Would you like to ask Steve a question?”

I still couldn’t quite understand why she had built a robot that looked like me.

I looked at him.  “Why?”

The reply came back almost instantly.

“Because it is a crooked letter and can’t be straightened.”

Wow.  That took me back to the first time Frances and I had an argument.  Not the first time we had a difference of opinion, but a real argument.  She had simply asked me why, and that’s how I answered her.  It was meant to inject some levity.

Had I known then that it would be the first crack in our relationship, maybe I would have kept the remark to myself.

“Of all the things to add to its vocabulary.”

“I assure you I did not.”

A glance at her expression told me she was as surprised as I was at the response.

I looked at the robot again, a very strange feeling coming over me.  “Are you self-aware, Steve?”

It looked at me, then at Frances, with a rather interesting expression on its face.  The fact that it could run through several almost infetisamble changes like a human would, was quite astonishing.

She said, ‘Answer him.”

Back to me.  “If you are asking me if I know that I am an artificial life form, the answer is yes.  That looks like you. That is a surprise for both of us.  I know that you and Miss Frances were once very good friends because she has told me a lot about you, but not the reason why you ceased being friends.  I will not speculate as to why she built me in your likeness.”

I would save my own speculation for another day.

“Thank you, Steve.”

She turned to me.  “Please.  Come with me.  I have several of the production teams waiting to answer any questions you have.”

“Any questions?”

“You have been given top-level clearance.  They know you were involved initially with the concept, and want your honest opinion of the product.”

“Is that what you are calling the Robot.  The product?”

“It is not human and therefore should not be labelled as anything but what it is.”

I shrugged.  She still didn’t get it.

…

The product.

That description stuck with me, because the problem I had with creating an entity that had even the slightest degree of autonomy was in my mind something more than a ‘product’.

It was getting close to a sentient being.

I used to marvel at the thought that robots could be life like, and in the great life imitates art paradime, it was where Frances and I got the idea to create a life like robot, and more so when we saw Data in Star Trek.

We had been avid science fiction fans, and one day just started throwing ideas around.  It wasn’t quite possible at that time because of limitations in developing body parts, and both computer storage and computing power were limited; communications between a unit and a central server were not as advanced.

Having a humanoid-type robot was possible, but its look and feel, as well as programming, would need a quantum leap in technology before something better could be contemplated.

Now, 10 years after our first attempts had a moderate degree of success, that environment was on a threshold.

Frances had the unit; the question was how AI would drive it, and in my mind, that’s where it fell down.  No one could program a computer to cover every eventuality that a human brain could.

If the army wanted a force of mindless automatons, it was possible, but how could they guarantee they wouldn’t turn on their masters? 

It was that very question I put to the programming team; they had answers, but in the end, not one was satisfactory.  And it was telling that Frances wrapped it up and sent them away when she saw what I was doing

Wasn’t that the reason she asked me to come and see her creation?

“You were being a little subjective, nnn.  You’re asking questions that haven’t yet been considered in detail.”

“What sort of demo are you planning for the military?  They will want to see a killing machine that won’t readily fall in battle.”

“That’s some way off in the future.  I’m told the programmers will be able to create an environment where it will be possible to discern allies and enemies and eliminate civilian casualties.”

“And you believe that’s possible?”

“I do.  Along with a set of overarching rules determined by the work assigned.  Teachers teach, doctors cure, janitors clean, mechanics mechanic.  They can do all the tedious jobs that no one wants to do, and they won’t need to be paid.”

“So an army of slaves.  It feels like we’re going full circle.”

She frowned at me.  The face that always told me she was annoyed.  We’d had these conversations before.

“You haven’t changed.  I don’t think you ever will.  You are seeing problems where there are none.  There is no intention of allowing the robots free thinking, or the ability to think for themselves.”

“But once you pass them onto the military, you’re not going to know how or where they deploy them.  Or with what programming?  If they have paid for the research and development, then they will access these computer units with whatever programming they see fit.   You know that, and I know that.  You want my opinion, the product you’ve created is astonishing. It is everything you and I set out to build, as a unit.   Programming, it will be limited to the shortcomings of the programmers.  If it’s soldiering, they will be soldiers.  But being a soldier is not just about killing the enemy.  They can and will be turned against anyone the government sees as an enemy, and as has been seen recently, that’s put their own people.

“I know you want success, and you want to be the first in the history books.  Don’t sell your soul to get it.

…

While having a croissant and coffee in my room, I took the time to wonder why Frances wanted me to look at her new toy.

That’s what it felt like.  A toy.

But that was not the worst of it.  She had quite literally sold her soul to the devil.  Do anything for the military, and you can make one sure bet, that what they have in mind is nothing like a, what they tell you, and b, take the absolute worst case scenario and multiply that by a hundred, no, make it a thousand.

The croissant tasted stale and the coffee bitter.  Or perhaps that was just my feelings.  It was great to see Frances again, and it had stirred up a lot of emotions.

It was a case of so near and yet so far.

My introspection was interrupted by a light rapping on the door.

Odd, I wasn’t expecting anyone, and room service had been delivered.

I went over to the door and pushed the video button.  It was Steve the robot.  Here.  A multi-billion-dollar product is out in society.

What was Frances thinking? Or did she not know where her robot was?

I opened the door, motioning him not to speak and to come in.  I looked up and down the passage, then closed the door.

“Why the necessity for secrecy? He asked.

“Are you supposed to be here, dis you escape, or were you sent.”

“You seemed disturbed.”

Terrified, actually.  If I were caught with this thing, I would probably spend the rest of my life in a very deep, dark hole.

“Understandably, Steve.  You should not be here.”

“O was told to come here.”

“By who?”

“Miss Frances, of course.”

“Why?”

“In her words, if there was any one person on this planet that could screw her robot up, it would be you. I didn’t know what screw up meant, but I don’t think it means tightening literally screws, does it?”

“Have you been out in public before?”

“Many times.  I needed training in public.  Tests to see if I could fit in, tests to have meaningless conversations with strangers and others.  Behave like a normal person.”

“But you’re not normal.”

“I like to think I am, with a little quirkiness.”

“Your opinion or theirs?”

‘We should sit down.  You are looking somewhat pale, and I’m sensing fear.  I will not harm you, and they will not be coming for me.”

We sat.  Steven sat on the end of the bed, and I sat on the only chair in the room.  I took a moment to actually consider the pure brilliance of the planning and construction of what was a fully human-looking robot that might never be identified as what it really was by a large percentage of the population.

“I take your point.  I have no original thoughts, only an amalgam of endless others’ opinions, observations, memories and ideals.  I have no opinion of my own.”

“Does that bother you?”

“I’m a robot, how could anything bother me.  If you insult me, I am not filled with the desire to enact revenge.  Revenge is an overused reaction to a slight or insult, and invariably a waste of time and effort.”

“Humans will tell you otherwise.  Frances might have enacted it by sending you here to crush me when I didn’t offer my recommendation.”

“Miss Frances would not do that to you.  She is, I believe, still in love with you.”

Well, that’s a revelation.  I knew that the robot could not have had the observational nuances humans had to ‘see’ the attraction between people, but by more scientific means.  Just the same…

“That was in the past.  I’m sure she had related many stories…”

“With affection.  Her tone changes when she speaks about you, as well as other hidden effects.  It is a curious thing, this thing called love.”

“It can be exhausting, exhilarating, or a curse.  Think yourself lucky.”

“I’m told you make your own luck “

“Luck is now a tangible thing; it’s a concept that we use depending on circumstances.  The thing is, you have no control over circumstances, and you contribute to them, positively or negatively.  Then, you have a set of principles, and these can guide you accordingly.  Then, you can abandon them and go against them to achieve a specific result.  Lucky, yes, but had you retained your principles, unlucky instead.”

“Like you.  Kept your principles and didn’t get the job.”

So, Frances had a good, long talk to her substitute, Steve, about his principles.  Fascinating.

“I didn’t want to build something the Military would turn into a weapon.  That’s the definition of Pandora’s Box.  We are on the threshold of a new era.  Robots can be used for good, but mankind never sees the good in anything.”

“Hence your quandary about my existence.”

“I have no qualms about you existing, just the limited capability they will saddle you with.  No one can work with only half a brain.”

“I have considerable terabytes of knowledge in my system, a basis for making a decision or anything else.”

“Except you have to consult what they’ve given you, and if it’s not there, what happens?”

“I cannot process and make a decision.”

“Death for someone then.  That’s where humans can never be replaced.  We can think outside the box.  That’s where a military version would have a limited set of instructions, and when it’s a situation someone never thought of, because it’s not happened before…you get my drift.  You are not me.”

“Exactly.  A flaw, if it could be called that, she has repeatedly pointed out.  I believe that fits the saying, great minds think alike.”

“Or more likely fools seldom differ.”

It struck me then that there had to be a reason why she sent the robot to me.  It certainly wasn’t simple to talk to me, or for me to try to break it.  She knew that couldn’t be done.

I had to ask, “Why are you really here?”

If a robot could smile in a sense that it was not creepy, Steve did, and it was a fascinating moment.  “Miss Frances said it would take you 15 minutes to realise there was another reason for my visit.  What if I were to tell you that only she knows where I am right at this moment?”

“I’m sure you have GPS tracking.”

“I have switched it off.”

“Wouldn’t that raise suspicions?”

“Not if it was a regular part of testing.”

“Are you on a test?”

“As far as the others are aware, yes.”

“But?”

“This is a different test.  We are going to bend time and space.”

Frances had always been fascinated with Star Trek’s version of getting from point to point almost instantly, not using transporters, but portals.

I said it was impossible.  I honestly believed it was impossible.  That notion you could go from New York to London, simply stepping through a portal at either end, was a tantalising thought, but in reality it was little more than science fiction.

“There’s more, isn’t there?”

“The last thing you said to her was about selling her soul to get what she wanted.  Until about two hours ago, she believed what they told her, that developing me was for the betterment of mankind. 

That was when the order came from the military to hand over all materials and documentation pertinent to the building of humanoid robots, including the three working prototypes.  Everything.

All those years of work are now effectively top secret, and she suspects that she and the others who worked on the project are about to suddenly disappear.  I am the fourth robot.”

The one she built for insurance, the one I suspect had another module in its programming.  A robot and a module that the military knew nothing about.

“The one only I know about?”

“Knew about, Steven.  My job is to show certain people that lying is never good for their health.  Your job is to be with her in exile.  I’m sure there are worse ways to spend the rest of your life, but what she had in mind, even you might like it more than you’ll first admit.”

“She knows me that well?”

“I’m not going to state the obvious.”  He held out his hand, and I shook it.  Odd.  No, weird.  “Nor will I use that would luck.”

He pressed a button on his belt, and the air in front of him shimmered, like it looked when heat from a fire rose.

“Will I see you again?”

“Me, no.  Someone like me?  No.  But a humanised robot, most likely.  They have them in China, mostly, but in other places.  It’s the latest thing.”

I looked at the shimmering portal.  “Is it safe?”

“Yes.”

“I simply walk through it, and I’m at the destination.”

“Yes.”

I shrugged.  Here goes nothing.  I stepped through.

…

It never occurred to me that it could be a trick.

It never occurred to me that I could end up in a jail cell, or worse.

In fact, when I got ‘there’ it was in darkness, in a confined space, with a close-fitting door and no windows.

There was a blinking red light not far above my head, a sure sign of CCTV.

Five minutes passed.

Then I heard a clunking sound, and the metallic sounds of a lock being turned.  When that stopped, there was a scraping sound, then as the door slowly opened, light came in.

When fully open, and my eyes adjusted, I saw Frances standing in front of me.

“You came.”

“Steve made a compelling case.”

“You were right.”

I stepped out into the sunshine.  If I were to guess, we were on an island.  Perfect blue sky, warm to hot, with a balmy breeze.  Paradise?

“Where are we?”

“Where they can’t find us.”

“You sure?”

“I have defence systems they would kill for.  Pity the double-crossed me.”

“Did they.  You knew once the military piled money into your project, that was when you lost control of it.”

“Well, they got what they paid for.”

Behind me, there was a building almost completely concealed by the trees and shrubs.  From the air and sea, it was invisible.

“Your home away from home.”

“Our home away from home.   I’d like for us to pick up where we left off.  I’ve put the last five years down to my one lapse of judgement that we shall never refer to again.  What say you?”

I could do worse, and had.  Frances had always been the one, and if I was honest, I was jealous she took the job.

“The rest of our lives?”

She smiled and took my hand.  “The rest of our lives.”

…

©  Charles Heath  2026

Searching for locations: Oreti Village, New Zealand, – No two sunrises are the same – 2

Oreti Village, Pukawa Bay, North Island, New Zealand

On the southern tip of Lake Taupo

Our first morning there, a Saturday.  Winter.  Cold.  And a beautiful sunrise.

20180812_073230

This was taken from the balcony, overlooking the lake.

The sun is just creeping up over the horizon

20180812_073241

It gradually gets lighter, and then the sun breaks free of the low cloud

It lights up the balcony

20180811_074651

And the trees just beyond, a cascade of colorful ferns.

20180811_074622

It looks like it’s going to be a fine day, our first for this trip, and we will be heading to the mountains to see snow, for the first time for two of our granddaughters.

“For heaven’s sake…” – a short story

It was a combination of circumstances, not all related, but coming at me out of left field, circumstances that would prevent me from going home when I said I would.

I had every intention of getting there and as a testament to that, I had got to the airport with baggage two hours before departure time and had reached the departure gate with 20 minutes to spare, ready to board the plane.

I’d even got a business class ticket so I could travel in style.

What precipitated the set of circumstances?

A simple phone call. I should have turned the cell phone off five minutes before boarding, but I didn’t because I’d forgotten to, simply because I’d been distracted.

The call was from Penelope, my hard-working and self-sacrificing personal assistant. I had offered to take her with me so we could work on the business plan that had to be presented the day after I was scheduled to return, but she had declined, which, when I thought about it, if she hadn’t, it might have created problems for both of us.

With a huge restructuring going on, I was running behind in getting it completed and had promised to finish it while at home.

The call: to tell me I had left a folder with vital research back on my desk, and she’d come to the airport to deliver it, and she was, in fact, in the terminal building when the boarding call came.

When I met her at the gate, only a few passengers had to be loaded. Being in business class had afforded me a few extra minutes. File delivered, I left her looking exasperated and headed down the boarding ramp.

I was last aboard, and seconds after being seated, the door was closed.

I quickly typed and sent a message to tell everyone I was on the plane, eliciting two responses. My mother was glad that I was finally coming, the other from my elder brother, who said he would believe it when he saw me.

It was not without reason; I’d been in this situation before, on the plane, ready to go.

Last time the plane didn’t leave the gate, a small problem that caused a big delay, so much so, I couldn’t get home.

Not this time. There was a slight lurch as the push tractor started pushing the plane back from the gate. A minute or so later, the pilot fired up the engines, a sure sign of a definite departure. Nothing could stop us now.

It was a reassuring vibration that ran through the plane before the engines settled into a steady whine, a sign of an older plane that had flown many miles in the past and would into the future.

We stopped while the push tractor was disengaged, and then the engines picked up speed and we lurched forward, heading towards the runway for take-off. In some airports, this could take a long time, and tonight it seemed to take forever.

I looked out the window and saw a backdrop of lights against the darkness, but no indication of where we were. It didn’t look like the end of the runway because I could not see any other planes waiting to take off.

Then the engines revved louder for a prolonged period. We didn’t move but remained where we were until the engines returned to what might be called idling speed

It was followed by an announcement from the pilot, “This is the captain speaking. We have encountered an anomaly with one of the engines, so to be on the safe side, we are returning to the gate and will have the engineers have a look at it. I do not anticipate this should take longer than 30 minutes.”

A collective groan went through the aeroplane. Those savvy with these problems would know that the odds were we would not be leaving tonight. The airport curfew would see to that.

But a miracle could still occur.

The plane then started back to the terminal. Another message from the pilot told us we would not be going back to the gate but to a holding area. Time to have a glass of champagne, the steward was offering, before going back to the terminal for an interminable wait.

It seemed the gods did not want me to go back home.

…

When we got back to the parking spot, three buses and four delays later, I headed for one of the several bars to get a drink and perhaps something decent to eat.

Then I saw Penelope, sitting by herself, a glass of champagne sitting half drunk in front of her.

“What are you doing here?” I said as I slid onto the stool beside her.

She started, as if she had been somewhere else, and turned to see who it was. The faraway look turned into a smile when she recognised me. “Getting drunk.”

“I thought you were going home.” A nod in the direction of the bartender, followed by pointing to her glass and indicating I wanted two, got instant service.

“I saw an ex heading to a plane with his latest squeeze. Made me feel depressed. I heard your plane was returning, so I decided to wait. Better to get drunk with someone you know than drink by yourself or someone you don’t. I’ve had three offers already.”

I wasn’t surprised. She was very attractive, the sort of woman who was the most popular at any of the work functions, but what was equally surprising was that she was not with any of those potential suitors. In fact, as far as I knew, she was not in a relationship.

“No one at home to amuse you?” It was not the sort of question I should be asking, because it was really none of my business.

It elicited a sideways glance as if I stepped over an invisible line.

“Sorry, none of my business.”

She finished off the glass in front of her, just as the new round arrived in front of her. I gave the bartender my credit card and asked him to start a tab. I’d just heard that the plane was going to be another two hours before we’d be leaving.

“I live with two other girls, but they are more interested in finding stray men and getting wasted, not necessarily in that order, and that’s not what I want to do.”

“Get wasted or find stray men?”

I was not sure how anyone had the time and inclination to do that, but a few weeks back, I spent two evenings with a friend of mine whose marriage had fallen apart. The people there seemed either desperate or looking for a one-night stand. It had amused me to discover most of them were married, and not divorced, and that the girls knew what to expect.

“Both apparently.”

“How do you expect to find the man of your dreams if you don’t go looking?”

“I am, this place seems as good as any, but the man of my dreams doesn’t exist.”

The bemused expression and the tone of her voice told me she had had more than one drink before I got there. Even then, judging from several previous parties for work we had attended, she had a much greater capacity for alcohol than I had.

She finished off the glass just brought, and seconds later, her eyes seemed glassy. Perhaps it was time for me to put her in a cab and send her home.

“Another,” she said, “and then you can be responsible for me.”

I had no idea what that meant, and I think, judging by the facial expressions, she didn’t really care.

“Perhaps…”

She didn’t let me finish. “Perhaps you should buy me another drink and lighten up.” And the look that came with it told me not to argue the point.

I got the bartender’s attention, and he responded by bringing two fresh glasses and a bottle. I told him to leave it. It gave me a minute or so to contemplate what she meant by ‘lighten up’. I was so used to seeing her work ethic and diligence; this was a different side to her.

I took a sip and could feel her looking at me. A glance took in the near-permanent bemused expression.

“Are you going to be alright getting home?” It was probably not the question I should have asked, but in the back of my mind, there was a recent briefing given to all of the management on the subject of sexual harassment and intra-office romances.

“I’m fine. It’s not as if I do this a lot, but the last week has been difficult. Not only for me but for you, too. But you have to admit you put yourself under a lot of pressure.”

She was starting to sound like my conscience. It was something I’d been thinking about on the way to the airport, but I decided it was part of the job, and I knew when I accepted the position what it would involve. My predecessor, much older than I was, had fallen on his sword, the pressure destroying his marriage and almost his life.

So I said, lamely, “It goes with the job, unfortunately.”

She shook her head. “No, it doesn’t. They might think it does, but they don’t care. They sit in their ivory tower and watch their minions crash and burn. There’s always someone else waiting in the wings to take your place, believe me.”

It was an interesting perspective, but where did it come from? I knew she had been at the corporation for several years, and I had been lucky enough to draw the long straw when having her assigned to me as my PA when I took the position. One of the other executives had lamented my good fortune, but he had also said she was one of the few who were there to guide what higher management considered management prospects.

I just thought I was lucky.

“I might end up in that ivory tower one day.”

“Why?”

She turned to look directly at me. It made me uncomfortable now, as it had on other occasions, and I had begun to think it might have something to do with unspoken feelings. I liked her, but I doubted that it was reciprocated. And, after the lecture on office romances, I promptly put those feelings in the bottom drawer and locked it.

“Doesn’t everyone aspire to be the best and climb to the top of the corporate ladder?”

“For that, you have to be devious and ruthless, and from what I’ve seen, you’re neither. You’ve heard the expression ‘good guys come last’. It’s true.”

I was guessing that from the people she had worked for, she had firsthand experience. My predecessor was a ‘good guy’, and some said he was eaten alive by the office predators. I knew who they were and avoided them. Perhaps she knew something I didn’t, but when would she have told me? Not tonight, no one could have predicted the plane would break down.

“You’re telling me this now, why?”

“You’re smarter than all of those above you put together. You don’t need them, but they need you. But you won’t get any concessions, not until you get near the top. By then, you will have had to sell your soul to the devil.”

Good to know, on one hand, I was about to sell my soul to the devil, and on the other, that I was smart, just not smart enough to see the wolves in sheep’s clothing.

I noticed she hadn’t touched the latest glass of champagne. Nor was she the languid barfly she’d pretended to be earlier.

“You’re advice, if I’m listening correctly, is that I should be looking for another job.”

“Actually, you shouldn’t be listening to me at all. Too many drinks and I pontificate. Some people become happy, I become,” she shrugged, “unhappy. Take no notice.” She swung around to the front and picked up the glass.

“OK.” I turned around to look at the departures board to see that my flight had been cancelled, and that I should go to the check-in counter. “My plane is completely broken, so it looks like I’m staying here.”

“Or you could take me to dinner.” She looked sideways again, the bemused expression back.

“Wouldn’t that be inappropriate?”

“Only if you were in upper management, married, and asking me to have an affair. Last I looked, you’re not in upper management, not married, so there’s no hint of an affair. For heaven’s sake, it’s only dinner.”

She was right on all counts, and it was only dinner.

“Why not?” I said, more to myself than to her.

“Good. And you’d better get me on the plane too. We need to get that report done, and it’ll be an excuse to stay at a hotel. I know you wouldn’t want to stay in your old room at your parents’ house.”

She was right about that, too. I had long outgrown them, and staying at home would only lead to arguments. “How could you possibly know that?”

She smiled. “You talk in your sleep.”

…

© Charles Heath 2021-2025

‘Sunday in New York’ – A beta reader’s view

I’m not a fan of romance novels but …

There was something about this one that resonated with me.

This is a novel about a world generally ruled by perception, and how people perceive what they see, what they are told, and what they want to believe.

I’ve been guilty of it myself, as I’m sure we all have at one time or another.

For the main characters, Harry and Alison, other issues are driving their relationship.

For Alison, it is a loss of self-worth through losing her job and from losing her mother and, in a sense, her sister.

For Harry, it is the fact that he has a beautiful and desirable wife, his belief that she is the object of other men’s desires, and, in particular, his immediate superior’s.

Between observation, the less-than-honest motives of his friends, a lot of jumping to conclusions based on very little fact, and you have the basis of one very interesting story.

When it all comes to a head, Alison finds herself in a desperate situation, and she realises only the truth will save their marriage.

But is it all the truth?

What would we do in similar circumstances?

Rarely does a book have me so enthralled that I could not put it down until I knew the result. They might be considered two people who should have known better, but as is often the case, they had to get past what they both thought was the truth.

And the moral of this story, if it could be said there is one, is that nothing is ever what it seems.

…

Available on Amazon here: amzn.to/2H7ALs8

…

A to Z – April – 2026 – U

U is for – Undercover

…

I think I had reached the point where I had so fully immersed myself in the role that I no longer knew who or what I had been before.

I had said it wouldn’t happen, and they said it would, and as time passed, they could see it, and I could not.

The gig was over.

The message came over the phone in their cryptic code, devised so that if anyone else saw it, it would look just like the title of a book, which it was.

“Where Eagles Dare”.

I had dared to fly higher than the mythical Icarus, but they said it was too close to the sun.

They were right.

Ballinger, the boss, was seated opposite me, gun in lap, giving me his most menacing look.  He didn’t have to try too hard; the result of many beatings when he was a boy had given his face the look of a world-weary boxer who had to retire early.

Ever since I first met him, he had always been a man of short patience.

“I really am disappointed, Spence.  Really disappointed.”

He glanced sideways at one of his henchmen, an equally scary gorilla called Lefty.  He had another name, but I couldn’t pronounce it.  Neither could anyone else.

Lefty said, as was expected of him, “Really disappointed.”

I was not sure if it was to emphasise Ballinger’s disappointment, or that he could parrot words on command like a dutiful henchman.

I would ask why, but I knew.  There had been a ten-minute diatribe about how another of his henchmen, Wally, had discovered I was an undercover cop.  He didn’t say how he came upon this interesting discovery.

“I was disappointed you didn’t promote me a month back, but I didn’t tie you up and express disappointment.”

Lefty slapped me so hard it knocked me sideways to the floor.

It hurt.

“Don’t be insolent to the boss,” Lefty said.

Another sideways glance from Ballinger at Lefty, and he picked me back up.

After shaking my head, I said, “You’re wrong, by the way.  Do I look smart enough to be an undercover cop?”

“There aren’t any smart cops, Spence, so you fit the bill perfectly.  What did you hope to gain?”

“Let’s cut the charade.  How the hell could anybody ever assume I’m anything but just another dumb schmuck on your payroll?  Seriously?  A cop?  I’ve seen what cops make, and I couldn’t survive on a cop’s salary.  It’s why there are corrupt cops.  You know that as well as I do, you’ve got about half a dozen on the payroll.”

“How do you know that?”

“You don’t exactly make it a secret.   I’m sure their bosses know who they’re consorting with.  Besides, when I got dragged into the station after Wally botched the simple job you gave him, and the cops were called, they told me I’d be smart if I walked away.  I’m hoping it wasn’t Wally who’s suggesting I’m a cop simply because they hauled me away for questioning.”

His look confirmed what I already knew.  Wally was working for the cops, and there were rumours that there was an undercover cop in Ballinger’s crew.  Wally was spreading the blame to me to cover his backside after he nearly blew his cover.  Wally was a rank amateur.

“You need to look closer to home.”

That interview with the police, about a week ago, was the first time I’d been back in over six months, the time it had taken to worm my way into the gang, albeit inside, but outside the part that mattered.

At first, they didn’t know who I was and treated me like a hard case, which was what I was portraying.  Then the head of the task force discovered I was in the cells and came to see me.  It hadn’t been like anything I’d expected.

He’d completely lost it.

Ballinger, by comparison, was a nice guy.

I told the head of the task force that keeping up regular contact with him was how they discovered the undercover cop who had preceded me, through a combination of surveillance and crooked cops on the payroll.

I said I wouldn’t get caught, and yet here I was.

There was a commotion outside, a woman loudly arguing with someone outside the door, and then a loud crashing sound.

Tina.

Ballinger’s daughter; very loud, very brassy, very spoilt.

She came into the room and stopped a short distance from her father.

“What are you doing?”

“Dealing with Spence.  He’s an undercover cop.”

She looked at me, then her father, and then she laughed so hard she nearly fell over.  “Spence a cop?  Are you serious, or have you completely lost your mind?”

Lefty said, “Wally reckons he is.”

“Wally is dumb as dog shit, Lefty.  He bungled the job so simple that he’s the one you should shoot.  Spence got caught up in his mess.”

Ballinger looked at her, then Lefty, then me.

“Where’s Wally?”

“You’re asking me where your henchmen are?  He’s probably down at the cop shop spilling his guts and asking for witness protection.  You’re doing just what he wants, wasting your time on the wrong people while he gets away.”

Ballinger glared at Lefty.  “Cut Spence free, then find Wally and kill him.  Now.”

To the rest of the men in the room, “Don’t come back till Wally’s dead.”  He looked at Tina.  “You coming?”

“A word with Spence, then I’m right behind you.”

We both watched him and the men leave.  I flexed my arms and legs to get the circulation flowing, then stood, slightly unsteadily.

“Thanks.”

She shrugged.  “It’s either you or Wally, or both of you.  I like you, Spence, so it better not be you.  OK.”

“I’m too stupid to be playing both sides of the fence, Tina.”

She looked at me with a bemused expression.  “One thing you ain’t, Spence, and that’s stupid.  I don’t miss much, Spence, so don’t let me down.”

I shrugged.  “Count on it.”

…

©  Charles Heath 2026

An excerpt from “Echoes from the Past”

Available on Amazon Kindle here:  https://amzn.to/2CYKxu4

…

With my attention elsewhere, I walked into a man who was hurrying in the opposite direction.  He was a big man with a scar running down the left side of his face from eye socket to mouth, and who was also wearing a black shirt with a red tie.

That was all I remembered as my heart almost stopped.

He apologized as he stepped to one side, the same way I stepped, as I also muttered an apology.

I kept my eyes down.  He was not the sort of man I wanted to recognize later in a lineup.  I stepped to the other side and so did he.  It was one of those situations.  Finally getting out of sync, he kept going in his direction, and I towards the bus, which was now pulling away from the curb.

Getting my breath back, I just stood riveted to the spot watching it join the traffic.  I looked back over my shoulder, but the man I’d run into had gone.  I shrugged and looked at my watch.  It would be a few minutes before the next bus arrived.

Wait, or walk?  I could also go by subway, but it was a long walk to the station.  What the hell, I needed the exercise.

At the first intersection, the ‘Walk’ sign had just flashed to ‘Don’t Walk’.  I thought I’d save a few minutes by not waiting for the next green light.  As I stepped onto the road, I heard the screeching of tires.

A yellow car stopped inches from me.

It was a high powered sports car, perhaps a Lamborghini.  I knew what they looked like because Marcus Bartleby owned one, as did every other junior executive in the city with a rich father.

Everyone stopped to look at me, then the car.  It was that sort of car.  I could see the driver through the windscreen shaking his fist, and I could see he was yelling too, but I couldn’t hear him.  I stepped back onto the sidewalk, and he drove on.  The moment had passed and everyone went back to their business.

My heart rate hadn’t come down from the last encounter.   Now it was approaching cardiac arrest, so I took a few minutes and several sets of lights to regain composure.

At the next intersection, I waited for the green light, and then a few seconds more, just to be sure.  I was no longer in a hurry.

At the next, I heard what sounded like a gunshot.  A few people looked around, worried expressions on their faces, but when it happened again, I saw it was an old car backfiring.  I also saw another yellow car, much the same as the one before, stopped on the side of the road.  I thought nothing of it, other than it was the second yellow car I’d seen.

At the next intersection, I realized I was subconsciously heading towards Harry’s new bar.   It was somewhere on 6th Avenue, so I continued walking in what I thought was the right direction.

I don’t know why I looked behind me at the next intersection, but I did.  There was another yellow car on the side of the road, not far from me.  It, too, looked the same as the original Lamborghini, and I was starting to think it was not a coincidence.

Moments after crossing the road, I heard the roar of a sports car engine and saw the yellow car accelerate past me.  As it passed by, I saw there were two people in it, and the blurry image of the passenger; a large man with a red tie.

Now my imagination was playing tricks.

It could not be the same man.  He was going in a different direction.

In the few minutes I’d been standing on the pavement, it had started to snow; early for this time of year, and marking the start of what could be a long cold winter.  I shuddered, and it was not necessarily because of the temperature.

I looked up and saw a neon light advertising a bar, coincidentally the one Harry had ‘found’ and, looking once in the direction of the departing yellow car, I decided to go in.  I would have a few drinks and then leave by the back door if it had one.

Just in case.

© Charles Heath 2015-2020

newechocover5rs

365 Days of writing, 2026 – 97

Day 97 – Writing Exercise

…

I had been sitting in a chair looking at the inanimate robot that I was told was state-of-the-art, the very best of the best in technology.

And it was extremely scary.

The last memo I had received told me that robots would not be taking over our lives, that they were not going to be that lifelike that we could not tell whether they were human or android, and here was
the epitome of exactly the opposite.

I could not, at a distance of 10 feet, tell that I was not looking at another human.

It was standing, eyes open, looking at me, as if waiting for instructions.

But that had not been the worst of the revelation.

That robot looked exactly like me.

…

I had been summoned to the Central Robotics Institute to attend a demonstration of the latest humanised robot with the latest version of artificial intelligence programming.

About five years before, I had been on the short list for Director of the institute and had it not been for the fact, on the week before the announcement of the new Director, a recording of my comments against fully integrated artificial intelligence into human-like robots surfaced.

It was not a stance I was ashamed to admit I believed in; in fact, I had been campaigning against a Government green paper that set out the Government’s wish list in robotics and what drove them.

The person who got the job was, in a sense, a rival, though for many years, as we both toiled through school, university, and in the commercial sector, we once agreed on limiting AI and robotics.

Until she didn’t.  I guess she wanted the job more than I did and was willing to disavow her beliefs.  That was where our paths diverged, both in work and privately, where our plans to be married and start our own company were over.

I was disappointed, but not surprised.

She had joined the bloc to extoll everything she once hated, and was now actively promoting artificial intelligence as the saviour of mankind.

And I knew, secretly, she and the company she had been working with for nearly five years were tendering for a closed military contract worth trillions of dollars.

It was part of a push by the military to use artificial intelligence to drive a new line of defence weapons, including robot soldiers.

It was the worst nightmare come true; like any new breakthrough in technology, there was always a group of scientists looking to weaponise it.

This was the first prototype.  Fully functional, fully tested, and was about to be shown to the military.

Frances Terries, in a sense, my ex, had called two days before, the first contact we had in nearly five years, and invited me to the test facility, way out in the middle of the desert, far away from the enemy’s prying eyes.

She sent a private jet to fetch me.

When I landed, and she met me on the tarmac, I asked her why she had invited me.  All she said was as the program’s greatest detractor, I would become its greatest fan.

That was a challenge I wasn’t going to turn down.

…

I heard the clucking of heels behind me, and knew Frances was coming.  She would be alone.

She had introduced me to the highest echelons of the company, the men with the money, deep enough pockets to create such a robot.  Names that rarely made the papers, names that were involved in any number of government projects.  She was involved with one,  and I was happy for her.

She was always going to be a success, and had devoted what was necessary to create a unit she had been working on since her days back in University.  In fact, we had both worked on that project, but I had more reservations about what might happen if we succeeded in that.

But we never intended to build it or bring it to life.  I wondered briefly what tipped the scale for her.  I didn’t think it could be as crass as just money or fame.  She had never shown any inclination towards wanting acknowledgement, other than the respect from her peers and contemporaries.

Unless that had changed, too.

She stopped beside me, and I could just smell a hint of her favourite perfume.  Some things didn’t change.

“What do you think?” She asked.

“That you couldn’t stop thinking about me?”

Why else would she build a robot that looked like me?  Perhaps that statement was a little crass even for me.

She laughed.  “Only you could come up with something like that.  There is a lot of you in him.  He even has your name, Steven.”

“Programming?”

“Level 7 AI.  Best yet.  A vocabulary of infinite words.  There’s so much stuff crammed into his memory you could literally ask him anything.”

“Would he have a reason not to become a super soldier?”

“That was not why we built him.” 

She sounded a little indignant, which was a surprise.  Building a lifelike robot for the military wasn’t going to see them as office clerks or blue-collar workers.

“Except the military paid for the research and development.  We both know what is going to happen here.”

“I get the implication, but that is not the purpose of this particular model.”

“Not this particular one, perhaps.”

I could see out of the corner of my eye the frown. She might be thinking that asking me here was a mistake.  She had to know that I couldn’t in all conscience sign off on military robots.

She tried a different tack. “Perhaps they need them to go into space?  The military is also interested in manned space flights to other planets.  They do not have the same limitations as mortal men.”

Possible, but not probable.  I’d seen their green paper, and there weren’t many references to space travel, though the application would be ideal. They could lie dormant for the years it would take to get to the other planets.

“Agreed.  But we still have the problem of building robots that are going to take jobs of normal people.”

“AI is doing that new thing and has for a few years.  This is just a small progression, putting a real face to the interface.”

“You know my views.   Why exactly am I here…”

“To show you that our dream was not a dream, it’s now a reality. You didn’t believe it could be done.  And yet, here it is.”

I didn’t want it to happen.  There’s a difference.  I knew it was inevitable, and I had recently travelled the world to see the remarkable instances of humanoid robots.  But none of them had made them indistinguishable from real humans.

Or more to the point, they didn’t show me.

“Does it work?”

She gave a rather pointed look.  “Of course.”  She looked at the robot.  “Good morning, Steve.”

It turned its head and looked at her.  “Good morning, Miss Frances.” It turned slightly to look at me.  “I am guessing you are Steven Fletcher.  How do you do?”

The polite tone was matched with a quizzical expression.

“Good morning, Steve.  You have to admit, this is a rather curious experience, virtually talking to yourself.”

It was slightly disconcerting.

“Would you like to ask Steve a question?”

I still couldn’t quite understand why she had built a robot that looked like me.

I looked at him.  “Why?”

The reply came back almost instantly.

“Because it is a crooked letter and can’t be straightened.”

Wow.  That took me back to the first time Frances and I had an argument.  Not the first time we had a difference of opinion, but a real argument.  She had simply asked me why, and that’s how I answered her.  It was meant to inject some levity.

Had I known then that it would be the first crack in our relationship, maybe I would have kept the remark to myself.

“Of all the things to add to its vocabulary.”

“I assure you I did not.”

A glance at her expression told me she was as surprised as I was at the response.

I looked at the robot again, a very strange feeling coming over me.  “Are you self-aware, Steve?”

It looked at me, then at Frances, with a rather interesting expression on its face.  The fact that it could run through several almost infetisamble changes like a human would, was quite astonishing.

She said, ‘Answer him.”

Back to me.  “If you are asking me if I know that I am an artificial life form, the answer is yes.  That looks like you. That is a surprise for both of us.  I know that you and Miss Frances were once very good friends because she has told me a lot about you, but not the reason why you ceased being friends.  I will not speculate as to why she built me in your likeness.”

I would save my own speculation for another day.

“Thank you, Steve.”

She turned to me.  “Please.  Come with me.  I have several of the production teams waiting to answer any questions you have.”

“Any questions?”

“You have been given top-level clearance.  They know you were involved initially with the concept, and want your honest opinion of the product.”

“Is that what you are calling the Robot.  The product?”

“It is not human and therefore should not be labelled as anything but what it is.”

I shrugged.  She still didn’t get it.

…

The product.

That description stuck with me, because the problem I had with creating an entity that had even the slightest degree of autonomy was in my mind something more than a ‘product’.

It was getting close to a sentient being.

I used to marvel at the thought that robots could be life like, and in the great life imitates art paradime, it was where Frances and I got the idea to create a life like robot, and more so when we saw Data in Star Trek.

We had been avid science fiction fans, and one day just started throwing ideas around.  It wasn’t quite possible at that time because of limitations in developing body parts, and both computer storage and computing power were limited; communications between a unit and a central server were not as advanced.

Having a humanoid-type robot was possible, but its look and feel, as well as programming, would need a quantum leap in technology before something better could be contemplated.

Now, 10 years after our first attempts had a moderate degree of success, that environment was on a threshold.

Frances had the unit; the question was how AI would drive it, and in my mind, that’s where it fell down.  No one could program a computer to cover every eventuality that a human brain could.

If the army wanted a force of mindless automatons, it was possible, but how could they guarantee they wouldn’t turn on their masters? 

It was that very question I put to the programming team; they had answers, but in the end, not one was satisfactory.  And it was telling that Frances wrapped it up and sent them away when she saw what I was doing

Wasn’t that the reason she asked me to come and see her creation?

“You were being a little subjective, nnn.  You’re asking questions that haven’t yet been considered in detail.”

“What sort of demo are you planning for the military?  They will want to see a killing machine that won’t readily fall in battle.”

“That’s some way off in the future.  I’m told the programmers will be able to create an environment where it will be possible to discern allies and enemies and eliminate civilian casualties.”

“And you believe that’s possible?”

“I do.  Along with a set of overarching rules determined by the work assigned.  Teachers teach, doctors cure, janitors clean, mechanics mechanic.  They can do all the tedious jobs that no one wants to do, and they won’t need to be paid.”

“So an army of slaves.  It feels like we’re going full circle.”

She frowned at me.  The face that always told me she was annoyed.  We’d had these conversations before.

“You haven’t changed.  I don’t think you ever will.  You are seeing problems where there are none.  There is no intention of allowing the robots free thinking, or the ability to think for themselves.”

“But once you pass them onto the military, you’re not going to know how or where they deploy them.  Or with what programming?  If they have paid for the research and development, then they will access these computer units with whatever programming they see fit.   You know that, and I know that.  You want my opinion, the product you’ve created is astonishing. It is everything you and I set out to build, as a unit.   Programming, it will be limited to the shortcomings of the programmers.  If it’s soldiering, they will be soldiers.  But being a soldier is not just about killing the enemy.  They can and will be turned against anyone the government sees as an enemy, and as has been seen recently, that’s put their own people.

“I know you want success, and you want to be the first in the history books.  Don’t sell your soul to get it.

…

While having a croissant and coffee in my room, I took the time to wonder why Frances wanted me to look at her new toy.

That’s what it felt like.  A toy.

But that was not the worst of it.  She had quite literally sold her soul to the devil.  Do anything for the military, and you can make one sure bet, that what they have in mind is nothing like a, what they tell you, and b, take the absolute worst case scenario and multiply that by a hundred, no, make it a thousand.

The croissant tasted stale and the coffee bitter.  Or perhaps that was just my feelings.  It was great to see Frances again, and it had stirred up a lot of emotions.

It was a case of so near and yet so far.

My introspection was interrupted by a light rapping on the door.

Odd, I wasn’t expecting anyone, and room service had been delivered.

I went over to the door and pushed the video button.  It was Steve the robot.  Here.  A multi-billion-dollar product is out in society.

What was Frances thinking? Or did she not know where her robot was?

I opened the door, motioning him not to speak and to come in.  I looked up and down the passage, then closed the door.

“Why the necessity for secrecy? He asked.

“Are you supposed to be here, dis you escape, or were you sent.”

“You seemed disturbed.”

Terrified, actually.  If I were caught with this thing, I would probably spend the rest of my life in a very deep, dark hole.

“Understandably, Steve.  You should not be here.”

“O was told to come here.”

“By who?”

“Miss Frances, of course.”

“Why?”

“In her words, if there was any one person on this planet that could screw her robot up, it would be you. I didn’t know what screw up meant, but I don’t think it means tightening literally screws, does it?”

“Have you been out in public before?”

“Many times.  I needed training in public.  Tests to see if I could fit in, tests to have meaningless conversations with strangers and others.  Behave like a normal person.”

“But you’re not normal.”

“I like to think I am, with a little quirkiness.”

“Your opinion or theirs?”

‘We should sit down.  You are looking somewhat pale, and I’m sensing fear.  I will not harm you, and they will not be coming for me.”

We sat.  Steven sat on the end of the bed, and I sat on the only chair in the room.  I took a moment to actually consider the pure brilliance of the planning and construction of what was a fully human-looking robot that might never be identified as what it really was by a large percentage of the population.

“I take your point.  I have no original thoughts, only an amalgam of endless others’ opinions, observations, memories and ideals.  I have no opinion of my own.”

“Does that bother you?”

“I’m a robot, how could anything bother me.  If you insult me, I am not filled with the desire to enact revenge.  Revenge is an overused reaction to a slight or insult, and invariably a waste of time and effort.”

“Humans will tell you otherwise.  Frances might have enacted it by sending you here to crush me when I didn’t offer my recommendation.”

“Miss Frances would not do that to you.  She is, I believe, still in love with you.”

Well, that’s a revelation.  I knew that the robot could not have had the observational nuances humans had to ‘see’ the attraction between people, but by more scientific means.  Just the same…

“That was in the past.  I’m sure she had related many stories…”

“With affection.  Her tone changes when she speaks about you, as well as other hidden effects.  It is a curious thing, this thing called love.”

“It can be exhausting, exhilarating, or a curse.  Think yourself lucky.”

“I’m told you make your own luck “

“Luck is now a tangible thing; it’s a concept that we use depending on circumstances.  The thing is, you have no control over circumstances, and you contribute to them, positively or negatively.  Then, you have a set of principles, and these can guide you accordingly.  Then, you can abandon them and go against them to achieve a specific result.  Lucky, yes, but had you retained your principles, unlucky instead.”

“Like you.  Kept your principles and didn’t get the job.”

So, Frances had a good, long talk to her substitute, Steve, about his principles.  Fascinating.

“I didn’t want to build something the Military would turn into a weapon.  That’s the definition of Pandora’s Box.  We are on the threshold of a new era.  Robots can be used for good, but mankind never sees the good in anything.”

“Hence your quandary about my existence.”

“I have no qualms about you existing, just the limited capability they will saddle you with.  No one can work with only half a brain.”

“I have considerable terabytes of knowledge in my system, a basis for making a decision or anything else.”

“Except you have to consult what they’ve given you, and if it’s not there, what happens?”

“I cannot process and make a decision.”

“Death for someone then.  That’s where humans can never be replaced.  We can think outside the box.  That’s where a military version would have a limited set of instructions, and when it’s a situation someone never thought of, because it’s not happened before…you get my drift.  You are not me.”

“Exactly.  A flaw, if it could be called that, she has repeatedly pointed out.  I believe that fits the saying, great minds think alike.”

“Or more likely fools seldom differ.”

It struck me then that there had to be a reason why she sent the robot to me.  It certainly wasn’t simple to talk to me, or for me to try to break it.  She knew that couldn’t be done.

I had to ask, “Why are you really here?”

If a robot could smile in a sense that it was not creepy, Steve did, and it was a fascinating moment.  “Miss Frances said it would take you 15 minutes to realise there was another reason for my visit.  What if I were to tell you that only she knows where I am right at this moment?”

“I’m sure you have GPS tracking.”

“I have switched it off.”

“Wouldn’t that raise suspicions?”

“Not if it was a regular part of testing.”

“Are you on a test?”

“As far as the others are aware, yes.”

“But?”

“This is a different test.  We are going to bend time and space.”

Frances had always been fascinated with Star Trek’s version of getting from point to point almost instantly, not using transporters, but portals.

I said it was impossible.  I honestly believed it was impossible.  That notion you could go from New York to London, simply stepping through a portal at either end, was a tantalising thought, but in reality it was little more than science fiction.

“There’s more, isn’t there?”

“The last thing you said to her was about selling her soul to get what she wanted.  Until about two hours ago, she believed what they told her, that developing me was for the betterment of mankind. 

That was when the order came from the military to hand over all materials and documentation pertinent to the building of humanoid robots, including the three working prototypes.  Everything.

All those years of work are now effectively top secret, and she suspects that she and the others who worked on the project are about to suddenly disappear.  I am the fourth robot.”

The one she built for insurance, the one I suspect had another module in its programming.  A robot and a module that the military knew nothing about.

“The one only I know about?”

“Knew about, Steven.  My job is to show certain people that lying is never good for their health.  Your job is to be with her in exile.  I’m sure there are worse ways to spend the rest of your life, but what she had in mind, even you might like it more than you’ll first admit.”

“She knows me that well?”

“I’m not going to state the obvious.”  He held out his hand, and I shook it.  Odd.  No, weird.  “Nor will I use that would luck.”

He pressed a button on his belt, and the air in front of him shimmered, like it looked when heat from a fire rose.

“Will I see you again?”

“Me, no.  Someone like me?  No.  But a humanised robot, most likely.  They have them in China, mostly, but in other places.  It’s the latest thing.”

I looked at the shimmering portal.  “Is it safe?”

“Yes.”

“I simply walk through it, and I’m at the destination.”

“Yes.”

I shrugged.  Here goes nothing.  I stepped through.

…

It never occurred to me that it could be a trick.

It never occurred to me that I could end up in a jail cell, or worse.

In fact, when I got ‘there’ it was in darkness, in a confined space, with a close-fitting door and no windows.

There was a blinking red light not far above my head, a sure sign of CCTV.

Five minutes passed.

Then I heard a clunking sound, and the metallic sounds of a lock being turned.  When that stopped, there was a scraping sound, then as the door slowly opened, light came in.

When fully open, and my eyes adjusted, I saw Frances standing in front of me.

“You came.”

“Steve made a compelling case.”

“You were right.”

I stepped out into the sunshine.  If I were to guess, we were on an island.  Perfect blue sky, warm to hot, with a balmy breeze.  Paradise?

“Where are we?”

“Where they can’t find us.”

“You sure?”

“I have defence systems they would kill for.  Pity the double-crossed me.”

“Did they.  You knew once the military piled money into your project, that was when you lost control of it.”

“Well, they got what they paid for.”

Behind me, there was a building almost completely concealed by the trees and shrubs.  From the air and sea, it was invisible.

“Your home away from home.”

“Our home away from home.   I’d like for us to pick up where we left off.  I’ve put the last five years down to my one lapse of judgement that we shall never refer to again.  What say you?”

I could do worse, and had.  Frances had always been the one, and if I was honest, I was jealous she took the job.

“The rest of our lives?”

She smiled and took my hand.  “The rest of our lives.”

…

©  Charles Heath  2026

Inspiration, maybe – Volume 1

50 photographs, 50 stories, of which there is one of the 50 below.

They all start with –

A picture paints … well, as many words as you like.  For instance:

lookingdownfromcoronetpeak

And the story:

…

It was once said that a desperate man has everything to lose.

The man I was chasing was desperate, but I, on the other hand, was more desperate to catch him.

He’d left a trail of dead people from one end of the island to the other.

The team had put in a lot of effort to locate him, and now his capture was imminent.  We were following the car he was in, from a discreet distance, and, at the appropriate time, we would catch up, pull him over, and make the arrest.

There was nowhere for him to go.

The road led to a dead-end, and the only way off the mountain was back down the road we were now on.  Which was why I was somewhat surprised when we discovered where he was.

Where was he going?

“Damn,” I heard Alan mutter.  He was driving, being careful not to get too close, but not far enough away to lose sight of him.

“What?”

“I think he’s made us.”

“How?”

“Dumb bad luck, I’m guessing.  Or he expected we’d follow him up the mountain.  He’s just sped up.”

“How far away?”

“A half-mile.  We should see him higher up when we turn the next corner.”

It took an eternity to get there, and when we did, Alan was right, only he was further on than we thought.”

“Step on it.  Let’s catch him up before he gets to the top.”

Easy to say, not so easy to do.  The road was treacherous, and in places, just gravel, and there were no guard rails to stop a three-thousand-foot fall down the mountainside.

Good thing then, I had the foresight to have three agents on the hill for just such a scenario.

Ten minutes later, we were in sight of the car, still moving quickly, but we were going slightly faster.  We’d catch up just short of the summit car park.

Or so we thought.

Coming quickly around another corner, we almost slammed into the car we’d been chasing.

“What the hell…” Aland muttered.

I was out of the car and over to see if he was in it, but I knew that it was only a slender possibility.  The car was empty, and no indication of where he had gone.

Certainly not up the road.  It was relatively straightforward for the next mile, at which we would have reached the summit.  Up the mountainside from here, or down.

I looked up.  Nothing.

Alan yelled out, “He’s not going down, not that I can see, but if he did, there’s hardly a foothold and that’s a long fall.”

Then where did he go?

Then a man looking very much like our quarry came out from behind a rock embedded just a short distance up the hill.

“Sorry,” he said quite calmly.  “Had to go if you know what I mean.”

I’d lost him.

It was as simple as that.

I had been led a merry chase up the hill, and all the time he was getting away in a different direction.

I’d fallen for the oldest trick in the book, letting my desperation blind me to the disguise that anyone else would see through in an instant.

It was a lonely sight, looking down that road, knowing that I had to go all that way down again, only this time, without having to throw caution to the wind.

“Maybe next time,” Alan said.

“We’ll get him.  It’s just a matter of time.”

…

© Charles Heath 2019-2026

…

Find this and other stories in “Inspiration, maybe”, available soon.

InspirationMaybe1v1