Free Man Made Boy by Jon Skovron Page B

computers can only do the things the programmer explicitly teaches them how to do. They don’t learn or adapt or try new things. They can’t be random.
    But as far as I could tell, my project had just done something totally unpredictable. It did something I never explicitly taught it how to do. It analyzed my security measures, located a breach, adapted its
own code
to exploit that breach, and escaped. And I had no idea why.
    Which was…amazing. A first in computing history. I was a fucking genius.
    There was pounding on the front door of our apartment. I heard my mom’s footsteps walk toward it. She must have gottenhome sometime after me. A moment later, there was a knock at my bedroom door.
    “Boy,” said my mom. “Come out here please.” She never said things like “please” unless she was pissed about something and there were other people around. I quickly unplugged and went out to the living room.
    Mom was over by her pile of junk in the corner, acting like there was nobody else in the room. Charon stood in the doorway, his brown robes crooked on his bony frame, like he had just been running.
    “Boy! We need you!” he said.
    “What’s going on?” I asked.
    “The Siren just had a complete breakdown onstage in front of an audience. Nearly killed them all.”
    “Oh, no,” I said, wondering if she and the Minotaur had finally broken up. “Where’s my dad?”
    “He’s taking care of her.”
    “So what do you need me for?”
    Charon looked at Mom for a moment, but she was still pretending like he wasn’t there. So he turned back to me.
    “The Diva has taken this moment, while your father is occupied and Ruthven is managing the panicked audience, to pitch a fit. She wants company in her dressing room. You. Face-to-face. Immediately.”
    “But…”
    “Yeah. You have to switch off.”
    “No,” said Mom from her spot over by the pile of junk.
    “Bride…” said Charon. “You had to know it would happen sooner or later. Your husband can’t be in two places at once.”
    “She can wait.”
    “No, Bride. We can’t risk that. Not with her. Do you remember the last time? Twenty humans and three creatures dead. She could ruin everything. And you know she won’t accept you in his place.”
    My mom still stared at the pile of junk. She picked up part of an old toaster oven and examined it.
    “Please, Bride,” said Charon. “For the Company.”
    She stared at the toaster while we waited for her to answer. Slowly, carefully, she compressed it into a small lump of metal. Then she let it drop back on the pile.
    “For the Company,” she said. Her face was as expressionless as ever, but the stitches on her forehead vibrated with tension.
    “What about you, Boy?” he asked. “Are you up to it?”
    “I don’t know,” I said.
    “Wise answer. Will you do it?”
    I looked at Mom, trying to see what she wanted. But then I thought,
He didn’t ask her. He asked me
.
    “Sure,” I said. “I’ll do it.”
    I sat on the stool that I had seen Dad sit on so many times. My heart was pounding so hard I could feel it in my temples. Mom walked slowly over and stood behind me for a moment. I felt her gently loosen the stitches at the base of my skull.
    “What does it feel like?” I asked.
    “For most of it, it feels like nothing,” she said. “Then at the end, it feels like everything.”
    I could feel her push aside muscles and tendons to locate the nerves.
    “I know this is hard.” Charon sat on one of the chairs at the table. “I’ll talk to Ruthven about some extra food vouchers, or maybe a special trip to the junkyard.”
    Mom didn’t reply to that. I could feel her working deep into my spine now, slowly, methodically exposing the nerves.
    “Okay, Boy. It’s time.”
    BRIDE: How do you feel?
    BOY: Like IRC
    CHARON: What?
    BRIDE: It stands for Internet Relay Chat.
    CHARON: I still don’t understand, but okay :/
    BRIDE: Go quickly, Boy. The less time you spend like this, the less trauma there