Inception - Ascension Paradox, Book 1
Copyright© 2023 by L.R. Thornton
Chapter 28
“Das Fraulein is extraordinary,” Karlo mentioned three days later as he sat next to Daniel in the laboratory.
“I couldn’t agree more, Herr Braun,” he answered back. He rolled his chair over to the other monitor and looked at that screen, studying the various protocols which had been altered.
“It is hard to believe she is not real,” Karlo murmured. “Her hair shines like gold. Her skin, so pale and smooth like alabaster.”
“And the fact that she’s completely made from synthetics skin from top to bottom makes no never mind to you?”
Karlo grinned. “No.”
“Cheeky,” the professor said as he typed on the keyboard. “Be that as it may, she’s a marvelous work of engineering.”
“Ja, but whose engineering? Hers?” He pushed the frames up further on his nose. “That’s what we still don’t understand.”
Daniel eyed the man whose thick, white frames were decorated with multi-colored polka dots. He shook his head mentally. In the entire time he’d known Karlo, he never seen the man wear the same frames twice. It made Daniel wonder how many did Karlo have?
C. A. D. I. sat still in the chair, her head bent down over a paperback book she was reading. A cable was attached to her forefinger which was attached to the computer. When he asked her if it was okay to connect to her, she nodded and said yes.
The nuances of the android continued to shock him. Jackson and Jillian had come by each day and allowed him to spend hours on her. But the more he studied the protocols, which Jillian stated she had implanted into C. A. D. I.’s neural net, he saw that the protocols had been altered.
Looking at them was like looking a roadmap that had the same names of the city but the lines had been moved in different directions. Instead of going east toward City A, one now went to City A by going south. New roads had been placed, ones that had no discernable destination but where all intertwined in some unfathomable way he did not understand.
“What book are you reading, C. A. D. I.?” It was the first time he’d seen her read.
“A book by Shel Silverstein.”
He heard the page turn. “What’s the title of the book?”
“The Giving Tree.”
Memories of long ago stirred in his head as he recalled the tragic tale of a tree and the boy she loved. His mother used to read that story to him every few times a month before he went to bed. He’d grown from a boy to a man and still he never understood why the tree loved the boy so much even when she got nothing in return.
“What do you think of it?”
C. A. D. I. glanced up at him, her blue eyes clear. “What do you think of it, Professor?”
A sign of insufficient data. It was the same as when he’d first seen her at VEX and the child told asked her what her favorite poem was. C. A. D. I. hadn’t answered the question but she built a bridge of connection by trying to understand why the child like the poem. It was probable that she had responded by accessing a billion comments found online and selected the most appropriate response for the situation.
But she didn’t it this time. Why not?
“I’ve never understood the story to be honest with you,” the professor replied as he rolled back over to the computer which was analyzing data. “A tree loves a boy but why?”
C. A. D. I. said nothing to his statement but she turned back to reading the book.
“How are things, professor?”
Jillian’s voice made his head raise up from looking at the computer. “Did you get it?”
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