Dr Scure Stories - Chapter 5

(Written by Ace Dreamer; posted 08 September 2012)

Dr Scure - Season Zero - 03/Jul/2012

Chapter 5

Divided Loyalties

Early Summer, 2008, Luna.

"Big brother! Big brother! What are you doing?" The stocky red-haired figure looked up from his workbench, smiled briefly, then went back to working. Uran frowned at him.

"You're just teasing me! You've kept me out of here, every morning, all week. Now you've let me in. What'ya doing?" Uran stomped over to the wheel-chaired man, and mock-glared up at him, from all of her 1 metre height.

Brains looked down at her. "You're not going to give me any peace, are you?" He sighed. He reached under the bench, and pulled out a stool. "Hop up."

Uran bounced onto the stool, not even bothering to fly. She didn't normal fly in the house. Unless it was to get at something high. Or sneak up on someone, which she hoped soon would mean more than just Brains. She gulped.

The figure on the bench wasn't Gerry the Robot, or even Doctor Venus, which she knew he was working on. It wasn't even one of the mysterious long figures, which looking over she could see were concealed beneath their dust sheets, on trolleys on the far side of the workshop. The cat-like tail hanging down from under one sheet briefly distracted her, but this was far more important.

"But, that's me!" Brains had obviously just finished work on a robot girl figure, that looked identical to her. A charging cable was plugged-in and she could hear a faint, familiar, hum as power was sucked from the house's accumulators. The brain hatch was open, on the right side, where she had one, but she couldn't see any brain, at all, inside the head.

"You remember how I showed you, not long after you first woke, how to back yourself up?" "Squicky!", was her quick reply. "Yes. Taking half your brain out of your head and putting it into a memory recorder wasn't really a fair thing to ask you to do. But, it means that even if you're really badly hurt, then we could rebuild you."

Brains paused, obviously uncomfortable.

"I hope you remember how you said you felt a bit funny. Almost as if you were in two places at once. And, I ran all those tests on you, and the braincorder." "Huh!", she said emphatically. "Yes, I know it was boring, but it proved that the entanglement between your two half-brains kept working, even though they were physically separate. And, you seemed to be able to function fully, even with half a brain."

She looked at the body on the workbench. "This is the spare body, that you said I'd need if I got really badly hurt?" Brains paused. "No. This is so we can see if you're even more talented than I already know you are."

Uran stuck out her tongue at Brains, then dodged when he went to grab it with his fingers. She knew she was being a bit childish, but it made Brains laugh, and he didn't laugh anything like as much as he should. She realised she'd dodged into thin air, so she slid back onto her seat, thinking "I'm glad I'm not like the Coyote. I don't fall if I look down!".

"I'm not going to like this next bit, am I?", she said. "No, and if I'm right, Yes. I'd like you to take out your half-brain, as if you were going to do a backup, and carefully put it into here", and he pointed into the empty head of the figure. Suddenly a faint 'ping!' told them that recharging, or, she guessed first charging, was complete.

Reluctantly she went to open her brain hatch, then stopped, and carefully wiped her hands clean, first. The half-brain disengaged, as it was supposed to, and with slightly blurred vision she placed it in the open head. RESET.

She looked up from the bench. Gradually sitting up. Automatically her hand went up and closed her brain hatch, and a shocked figure looked at her from the stool and did the same. She noticed Brains grinning widely.

"Who am I?", she said slowly. "You're Uran." And Brains pointed at the person on the stool. "You're both Uran. Now you can be in two places at once!"

The two Uran looked at each other, and slowly an immense grin spread across both their faces. They bounced into the air, joined hands, and did a little mid-air skipping dance. Each could feel the other, but they seemed to need to use their built-in high band communicators to actually exchange information.

"We're going to have so much fun!" They looked over at Brains, and noticed he looked a bit wary, and, now that they looked more closely, his colour wasn't quite right.

"You've been over-doing it again!", said one. The other flew up to at him, and sniffed. "You've been eating Nutrition again, from your hot cup. I bet you've not been taking proper breaks! You said you wouldn't eat in the workshop. And, you promised the doctor!"

"But, but", he spluttered.

The two looked at each other. "Not a motorboat! Off to bed!", they chorused, as one picked him up, wheelchair and all. The other swooped-over and picked up a stack of brightly-coloured paperback books, and stuffed them in a bag marked "Andromeda Bookshop".

"You can rest, and read, in bed. We'll get you your next two meals, there. Yes, we know we can't cook properly, yet, but we know how to defrost things from the deep freezer."

They flew him into the bedroom, then landed, and stepped outside, while he prepared and hoisted himself into bed.

"Just to check, how long is it safe to be two of us?", one called. "Six hours, or until you'd do your usual backup, whichever comes first, should be safe. We'll do some tests, tomorrow, that should tell us more about how far you can push it", came the distracted voice, mixed in with a few grunts, from inside.

"Why doesn't he dial down the gravity to Lunar normal while he's doing that?", radiopathed one to the other. "You know how stubborn he is", came the reply. They nodded at each other.

"What are you plotting out there?", came the voice, probably now in bed. A quick peek confirmed.

"I'll only do this for three hours", came the reply, "And, you're going to be working on Doctor Venus, tomorrow. No matter how much I want to play with the kitties."

"You peeked!", came from an indignant Brains. "I told you not to peek!"

"Oops." "Anyhow, you need a doctor to keep an eye on you, far more than a robot pilot, or cute cat girls."

"They're not just cute cat girls, they're... OK. I'll work on Doctor Venus. Expert in Space Medicine. If I don't, I know you wont give me any peace." And, he yawned.

Uran stood and watched, until she was sure he was asleep. Then, went over and carefully tucked the covers in around him. Time to go and study the medical databases, and figure-out what symptoms they should be looking out for, and might already have seen. So they could brief Doctor Venus properly.

They might be in a house, on the Moon. But, they were going to make sure that Brains, their big brother, was looked after properly.

Venus In Transit

Early Summer, 2008, Luna.

Her body lay on the slab. Well, his workbench, really. Perfect. Only lacking life. And, confidence that he'd got her right.

Doctor Venus was the first full-sized human that he'd done. He didn't count Emily, as the "Weird Science" ritual had been used to bootstrap her into existence. Or, the stand-in for himself, as that was a deliberately flawed image, made via a diorama. Uran was a robot, she was herself, no problem there. Venus was different, someone who'd only existed as a puppet.

Dammit! No, he was wrong. His logic was flawed. Something was missing, and he needed to get advice, a different perspective. Fortunately, these days, he had someone other than the terror that was Emily to call on.

"Uran? Could you spare a minute? I'd... like your help, your advice."

"Sure!", came the reply from elsewhere in the house, and Uran bounced in. "I know we're on the Moon", thought Brains, "But most of the house is on Earth gravity, so why does she have to do the bounce walk?"

Uran was grinning a little. He hoped that just meant that she was eager to help, and not that some mischief was brewing in her head.

"Well...", and he looked at Uran, who just grinned a bit wider, and bounced again.

"I can't figure-out how to finish Doctor Venus. Maybe if I explain a bit, you can tell me if you have an ideas", and he looked at Uran, who nodded, and put her head to one side, as if listening attentively.

"The way I make, wave-up, anything is I get all the materials that I think are needed, are appropriate, together, and study them. If the product, I guess you could call it, is supposed to be intelligent then I'll make sure there is a framework, as close to the final result is intended to be as I can make. And something symbolic of the origin, the creative impulse, a book, a video, a doll, or even more than one of those. I suppose I do something nearly the same when I'm waving something unintelligent as well..."

"Yes, yes!", "I'm getting to the good bit!" Uran obviously wasn't going to give him too long to ponder. "I'll skip over the bit about making a miniature figure, in a diorama, to get out the 'bugs'."

Brains gathered himself. "Sorry, I'm trying to explain this to myself, as well."

"Hmph. Then I create a ritual, something to focus my intentions, so I'm clear about what's supposed to result. I guess I'm sort of trying to communicate with my subconscious, or whatever bit of me that the handwavium 'reads' to work out what its supposed to do. I start painting symbols and runes on the various materials, symbols appropriate to what the product does, using the sort of handwavium paint that fits that particular aspect."

Uran mimed yawning. "OK, OK, I'm really getting to the interesting part!", and he shook his head, in the hope of clearing the mild headache.

"Right. I've done all the set-up parts. Everything I can think of but it just doesn't feel right. Something is missing. I don't know what." He stopped and looked at Uran, expectantly.

She climbed up on a stool, and looked at the inanimate figure, dressed in her full "World Space Patrol" uniform, with the "XL5" symbol on the front, visible through her open white doctors coat.

Uran looked up at Brains, a little sadly. "I can help you with this. But, if I do... You wont just be able to think of me, any more, as the little sister you never had."

"Are you sure you want that?"

Brains took a big breath. "Yes."

Werebot In London

Early Summer, 2008, UK.

"Driving is boring", thought Uran. The M25, London Orbital, was worse than boring. It was monstrous.

Uran'd been surprised at being able to drive. She didn't know what other secrets Brains might be keeping from her. Apparently he'd used a copy of the Highway Code, a "Road Atlas of Great Britain", and an A-to-Z London as part of making her.

When she'd pressed him as to what else he'd used, he'd just smiled. And, said her good English and lack of lip-sync dubbing issues might be due to a Concise Oxford Dictionary, and 200hrs of BBC Radio 4 recordings.

Half-an-hour, so far, crawling along in this traffic. She couldn't do anything to distract herself, she never knew when they might start moving, again. This was a job that needed a driving robot. Wait a minute. She was a robot. Though she might not look like one, at the moment.

The human body had been a bit of a surprise. It'd taken three days to organise her trip down to Earth, a good amount of which was arguing with Brains that she rather than he should go. Eventually, the urgency of getting the supplies to make Doctor Venus had persuaded him, and he'd worked-out how it might be possible.

She hadn't been impressed. What was he doing with a blow-up sex doll, and one with blonde hair at that? His contact at a model shop knew someone who waved them up, then had some trick with water and 'essential salts' that made quite realistic flesh-and-blood. But they only 'lived' for about a week, then their flesh turned back into salty water. Brains modification was to allow her to put her half brain into one, and place the salts in a special container, so the flesh could be turned back into water, making the doll reusable.

Wearing a human body had been scary. She felt... vulnerable. Also, no built-in flight and invisibility, not to mention loosing her transceiver was like going deaf and having a hand chopped-off. At least if anything happened to her then the rest of her, on the Moon, looking after Brains, would be all right. She had, Brains estimated, after a load of tests, maybe three days. Quite what would happen then, she wasn't sure, but she doubted it'd be nice.

Ah, movement! But, a few car lengths only. The Bedford van she was driving had been Brains occasional vehicle. His family had paid for it, long ago, and the adaptation for a wheelchair-bound driver was his work. Then, it'd sat in that old garage for several years, since he got his new custom-fitted car.

Fortunately the original driver seat was OK, and her mechanical skills (for self-maintenance?) proved up to fitting it. Then, a quick waving to get the van in working order again, and adding image emitters to cover the number plates - just in case. It would've been easier just to rent something, but that'd its own problems, maybe testing her fake 'psychic paper' legal documents beyond their limits.

An hour later she was at her first stop. A small engineering firm Brains had done consultancy work for, on-and-off, over the years. They got the best of his 'novelty w-detectors', and carefully anonymised plans to make more. Her next four stops got the others, including the wind-up toy robot that klaxon-ed "Danger, Will Robinson, Danger!" when brought close to handwavium. All of them guaranteed handwavium free, and demonstrated using her sealed sample in its lead box.

The third stop was really annoyed when she demonstrated they'd been sold fake handwavium. So she threw-in a little booklet that Brains had downloaded and printed-off, "How to Use Handwavium", which had a nice section on recognising the different varieties. She was pretty sure she was followed after visiting there, but she shook-off her tail.

Uran wasn't sure if it was something about her, but she'd twice been approached by shady characters offering to sell her "The best wavium". Did she have a sign on her back that said "undercover were-robot"? She'd checked in a reflective shop window, and not seen anything too odd. Though, admittedly, her clothes were carefully selected from cos-play stuff Brains had made.

Now she was, briefly, several thousand pounds richer. And no longer able to ignore these feelings of hunger. Food was a novel experience, but she tried to be not too obviously emotional about it in the McDonalds. The bathroom visit afterwards was less pleasant. "I don't know how humans put up with this!", she thought as she washed her hands.

A visit to Foyles, "The Worlds Largest Bookshop", was eye-opening. She'd agreed a small budget for her own books, and some she was getting for Brains, outside the Venus Project. Her only human strength meant several trips back to where she'd parked the van. Then "Forbidden Planet", for "2000AD" collections, and a number of the nearby bookshops. Brains'd really disliked having to leave many of his books behind, in his cottage, "for realism", when moving to the Moon.

Exhausted after the day, she found a cheap bed-and-breakfast hotel. Next day the old medical supplies house was expensive, but she found a good second-hand bookshop where medical students obviously sold their old text books. Picking-up twenty-five years of "The Lancet", cheap because they'd been water-damaged, was a real find.

Not liking the way time was passing Uran grabbed a sandwich and drove out of London; fortunately the M25 was reasonably kind. Thinking back, she'd only had to turn-down two passes, and hadn't needed to use her kung-fu, even once! Good, because she was afraid she'd break a toe or something, in this body.

She guessed she'd got a couple of hundredweight, more than a hundred kilos, of books and supplies. On the way back she'd stop at a garden centre and get a load of seeds and seedlings - it'd be a nice surprise for Brains. Possibly at a clothes place, get some for Brains and her human body.

What worried her was looking around the cottage, before she left for London. Brainless was obviously trying hard, but she was pretty sure someone'd need to make regular, probably at least weekly, trips 'down', for realism.

And, she'd a nasty suspicion who it'd have to be...

Rockabye Venus

Early Summer, 2008, Luna.

She lay sleeping. On the bed cover. In her bedroom. Face relaxed. Breathing quietly. At peace.

They looked on, waiting. The sleeping woman, fully dressed. Her blonde hair neat around her pillowed face.

'It's a bit of a bugger', thought Brains. By him hovered both Uran, in mid-air, one at each side. You'd have thought, by now, he'd know what he was doing. But no, it was always different.

"Every incept is different", he said, out-loud, in a low voice, to Uran. "The first was Emily, of course, and I don't know what happened, because I was unconscious. Reasonable, I guess, because of the lightning strike. Amazing I wasn't deafened. But, I worked out later I was out for maybe half-an-hour."

They looked at Doctor Venus, in her XL5 uniform, covered by doctor's coat, fully dressed bar boots standing beside her bed. Brains hoped she'd be happy with her room, they'd tried to part-furnish it, to let her choose the rest. Could you say someone was sleeping when they'd never been awake in their lives?

"Brainless was next. I finished him. Moved back, and he opened his eyes. The first thing he did was complain. And he hasn't stopped, since." Uran frowned at Brain, from both sides, and Uran on his left commented, "I know he's difficult, but he does his best." "His best to be a pain in the neck", commented Uran on his right. They nodded in synchronisation.

"You were next. You just opened your eyes, and looked around, silently." "I was amazed at how new everything looked", said Uran on his right. "Yes, like all the colours were freshly painted", came from his left. "Then we talked. And I read to you from that book, 'The Little Prince', about a boy who lives on his own asteroid." "Yes, then you persuaded me to take out half my brain! And, put it in that mind recorder!" "I was afraid of loosing you!" "I still think that's icky", both Uran solemnly nodded.

Brains looked at Doctor Venus; yes, he was using her title in his mind, they must keep a professional distance. He knew the exact colour of her eyes, having carefully crafted them. Every wrinkle, every fold, of her skin. 'Am I going to have to kiss her to wake her?', he thought. Frantically, mentally, he paged through every step of the ritual, the logic of her creation. Then sighed. 'Not bloody likely!'

"Wait a minute!", said Uran, "I've got an idea!" And one of her zipped away. The remaining two watched, and made the occasional comment. At one point Uran flew off and quickly returned with Brains shaving mirror from the bathroom. After about five minutes the other Uran returned, with a laden tray - coffee pot, warm croissants, and other ingredients of a breakfast.

She put the tray down by the bed, on a small cupboard. Then, wafted the coffee aroma towards the doctor. For a moment there was no response, then her nose twitched, and she licked her lips. Light-brown eyes opening came next. "Milk? Sugar?", Uran asked. "Nice to have someone else make the coffee", came the French-accented reply.

Rapidly but elegantly Doctor Venus disposed of breakfast. When she paused to pour a third cup of coffee, she looked around, a little puzzled. "I'm afraid I don't know your sort of alien", she said to Uran. "But thank you for the breakfast. For some reason I'm very hungry." She turned to Brains, "Are you in command here?".

"Not really", said Brains, scratching his cheek. "This is actually a family home." He turned and looked at the other Uran. "Maybe you should show the good Doctor the mirror?"

Doctor Venus took the mirror, with a puzzled expression, then looked at herself. "What's happened to me? I look different! But, I can't explain quite how. My hair, my eyes, they're the same colour." She touched her face, looked at her hand, "I feel more... me. More alive. How could that be?"

"Well", said Brains, "You could argue you're not in your original body. Or make metaphysical claims about 'transfictionality'. Maybe you're...". He stopped, going white. "I'm afraid I'm not feeling very well, maybe we could discuss..." And he slumped in his wheelchair.

Doctor Venus sprang into action. "Have you got any medical supplies?" she demanded of Uran. "There's a First Aid kit in the cupboard, and an old doctors bag", Uran indicated the cupboard beside her bed. "This stuffs archaic!" commented the doctor, stuffing her feet into her boots. "Is this man on any medication?" "He's got it in his bedroom", returned Uran.

Uran picked up Brains, wheelchair and all. 'Maybe he's going to be all right' she thought.