Bound

By Nix Nada

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Amadi Owudunni leant on his heavy wooden crutch and swung his leg forward, following the others into the long, cold room.

He was the brightest of the children from his village; always questioning, curious about everything. His mother had said that it would get him in trouble one day; there were always soldiers fighting around the village and it was pushing his luck to keep exploring as he did. His discovery of a landmine, half-hidden in the dusty earth a short distance from his home, had proved her right and cost him his left hand, most of his right leg and the sight in one eye.

His whole village had prayed for his recovery and, by some miracle and what small ministrations the local doctor could provide, he had survived. His mother had wept to see her boy so ravaged and begged the other villagers to help him escape the dangers of their country.

Not wanting to see his potential lost and with the hope that he could receive better medical treatment elsewhere, they had agreed, pooling together all of their money, borrowing or begging what they did not have. Their kindness and sacrifice were more than Amadi could comprehend.

However, helping someone to flee the country is a risky venture at best and they soon found that few, if any, were willing to take on the additional risk of carrying a half-blind, crippled boy, at any price.

That is, until a representative of the Kore-Tex company made contact with an offer that he told them would solve all of Amadi’s problems in one go. It had sounded too perfect, too fantastic to be true, yet here he was.

Amadi took a moment to look around the room while his fellow refugees shuffled into place on either side of him. Three of the walls of the room were clad in pristine white tiles, the forth made of glass, through which he could see row upon row of ten foot tall robots, hanging still from a sturdy metal frame. Amadi looked up and saw a line of jointed steel arms, ending in stubby spikes, attached to the ceiling in a mess of wires and cables. He could only guess at their purpose, but the sight sent another sickening pulse of adrenaline into his already racing heart.

Two men strode into the room on the other side of the glass. One, a dark haired young man with lightly tanned skin and an expensive suit lifted a microphone from its cradle by the window. The other, a larger man dressed in oily overalls, stood behind him, his arms folded.

“My name is Mr Edwards and this is my associate, Mr Reese,” said the man in the suit, his American accent emanating from speakers near the ceiling. “You have all paid a rather large sum of money to be here today, so I’m going to make this as brief and as painless as possible.”

He stepped towards the glass and pointed upwards. “In a moment, the transfer devices will descend. You will feel a slight pain, here.” He pressed a finger to the centre of his forehead. “This is normal and nothing to be worried about. After that, your consciousness will be transferred… here.” He turned, gesturing with a theatrical sweep of his arm at the robots.

There was a murmur of surprise and fear from the refugees. They had been told that the company had an unorthodox idea for getting them out of the country but this was far beyond their imaginings.

“You will not know this,” Edwards continued, raising his voice over their concerns, “but robotics is not yet all that it might be. The current level of programming is insufficient for complex tasks. You will help us to bridge those gaps. The contracts Kore-Tex will secure as a direct result of exhibiting your robotic selves will pay for those software advances in the future. In return you will be given safe passage from this country; you will be given a job with a salary; you will be given time off; in short, you will be given a life, like that of any US citizen.”

As if to forestall any questions or concerns, Edwards stepped forward and jabbed a button which brought the mechanical arms above the refugees to life, sending them snaking downwards, their thick cables uncoiling behind them. The woman next to Amadi let out a whimper, closing her eyes tight in apprehension. He watched the pointed metallic limb that was meant for him aim itself at the centre of his forehead, as the woman began whispering a prayer.

Without warning, the metal arms shot a thin needle into their targets’ skulls. Amadi only had to time to register a brief blossoming of pain quickly filling his head to bursting followed by a feeling of the ground rushing up to meet him.

Everything changed. The world dimmed and grew cold, then all sensation passed. Amadi felt as if a hundred voices were whispering information to him at once and yet he could understand it all.

He didn’t so much open his eyes then, as become aware of vision, like switching on a screen. All around him, he saw identical robots gazing down in wonder at their metal hands, turning and examining themselves in the form of their identical neighbour. Everything looked different, clearer. The air crackled with grating synthetic voices. Beside him, a robot recited a prayer, half-finished.

Amadi looked over to the room where they had vacated their bodies and saw it looking empty. Stirring his new legs into motion, he staggered unsteadily – a combination of unfamiliarity with the new body and having grown unused to the sensation of having two legs – until he reached the window. Beyond, crumpled in sad little heaps, the refugees’ empty bodies lay like broken dolls. Amadi touched his claw-like hand to the glass and gazed down at his wooden crutch. It looked so tiny to him now, so insignificant.

With a curious detachment, Amadi noticed that the pressure of his hand, resting gently on the thick glass, was causing a hairline crack to appear in the corner of the window. The slightest pressure caused it to lengthen.

The big man in the overalls, Reese, rushed over. “Whoa, big guy – let’s ease up there, okay? We do not want that glass breaking.” He shouted over his shoulder to Edwards. “Let’s get them loaded up now, yeah?”

Edwards clapped his hands for attention. “People!” he said loudly. “Please, follow me. This way.”

They drove day and night, Amadi and his robotic companions strapped into the back of a large truck. There was no sensation of discomfort, but Amadi became aware of other things that were unique to his new body. Without knowing how, he could tell what time it was, to the very second. By looking around, he could tell the height, weight and estimated mass of the objects he could see. His hearing had increased, so much so that he could hear faint voices from passing cars. He passed the time in this way, experiencing his new body, as the others talking softly to each other, falling still and silent at every stop as they had been instructed to do.

In time, the noises outside the truck told Amadi that they had reached the coast – a port, from the sounds of ships.

Suddenly, the rear doors were thrown open and light flooded in. A woman in uniform climbed up into the truck. Reese stood behind her, wiping his hands on his overalls.

“As you can see, officer,” he said, “just a truckload of robot stock.”

“So you said,” replied the woman. “But when we find a ditch full of dead refugees, you’ll appreciate that we need to be sure. The snifferdog will only take a moment.”

Amadi’s mind raced. Had they been discovered? Had this all been for nothing? What would happen to them if they were found out?

The officer unclipped a small black box from her belt and walked through the truck, playing the device over each of the robots in turn.

When done, she stepped down from the truck. “Sniffer found no DNA traces. Truck’s clean. Sorry for the delay, sir.”

“Not at all, officer,” replied Reese. “Only doing your job. Good bye now.”

The doors slammed shut once more. Amadi had the curious and, he realised, impossible sensation that he had been holding his breath.

The ocean voyage took a little over three days. It was dark in the back of the truck, deep in the hold of the ship, near the crashing roar of its engines, but Amadi found that, by willing it, he could make his eyes pick out the shapes around him in shimmering green. The more he learned of his new existence, the more he found he was relaxing into it. A whole new world!

At last the ship arrived. After two more hours waiting, the rear doors of the truck were pulled open again and both Edwards and Reese climbed in.

Reese got to work unhooking the robots while Edwards stood in the middle of the truck and straightened his suit with a proud, expectant air.

“This is a big day,” Edwards announced, his grin wide. “Everyone has turned out to see you guys. This is the day that the Kore-Tex Corporation goes into the history books. And it is all thanks to you.”

He pulled a small, hand-held computer from his breast pocket and stabbed a button to boot it up. “However, I know you will understand that there are certain aspects of this operation that we would like to keep from the public. Thankfully, this is one area where software can help us. You see, we don’t actually require all of your mind for the machines to function. Pattern recognition, simple reasoning – these are the sorts of things that we need, that we couldn’t program. The parts that make you you – the parts that, let’s face it, would eventually get us in a lot of trouble – well, they can be stripped away at the push of a button.”

Amadi heard all of this as if in a dream. Edwards stood just in front of him, facing away, but when Amadi tried to raise his hands to strike him, to grab the computer – anything to stop this threat – he found he was unable to move.

“I’m sorry about this,” said Edwards, giving the computer a little shake. “These things do take a minute to log on. Ah, here we go.”

Amadi felt as though hot filaments were working their way through his mind, probing for bits of his self and shutting them down. Memories rose for an instant then fell forever. His country, his family, his friends – all were destroyed in a flash. In his mind, he looked through that long window again, staring down at his heavy wooden crutch. He tried to push through the glass, but when he looked again the crutch too had disappeared.

The last thing Amadi saw as the side of the truck fell open, was not the amazed crowds of onlookers; not the clamouring throng of media reporters; not the flash of the photographers’ cameras; not even the proud figure of the Statue of Liberty, rising up over the skyline. The last thing Amadi saw, as the last vestiges of his humanity were purged from his computer mind, was Reese’s leering face.

“Welcome to the New World, kid.”