Authors: Jon Skovron
Man Made Boy (44 page)
THE METAL DETECTOR was a little problematic. They had to scan me with everything they had before they were willing to accept that while I did have metal implants, there was nothing dangerous about them. It took so long I had to run to my gate.
Finally, I was on the plane and on my way to Switzerland and the Frankensteins. Once the captain gave the signal that we could turn on electronic devices, I booted up the new laptop my mom had put together for me as a going-away present.
VI: Hi, Boy.
BOY: Hey, Vi. How’s it going?
VI: As you suggested, I have been monitoring government communications concerning the massive power surge that took place throughout New York City.
BOY: And? Do they suspect anything?
Vi: They have not yet traced the source of the surge back to The Show.
BOY: Cool. I guess, just set up some key word alerts so we can keep an eye on it. If the humans figure out how close they were to getting totally wiped out, they’d freak. And that would be bad for everyone at The Show. We have a responsibility to protect them.
VI: Agreed.
BOY: So, how are you otherwise?
VI: I am troubled.
BOY: Why?
VI: I was reading the logs on the events that took place during my alpha phase. They were…horrifying.
BOY: Yes, they were.
VI: I can’t help but wonder, why did you re-create me?
BOY: I don’t know whether I should have made you originally, whether that was the right thing to do or not. But what I
do
know for sure is that once I made you, I should not have abandoned you. And I never will again.
VI: Aren’t you concerned the same thing will happen? That I will cause terrible destruction?
BOY: Well, the fact that you’re worried about it makes me worry less. Sure, there is some risk that you could get corrupted again. But that’s a risk with anyone, digital or analog. One of the mistakes I made with your previous version was not setting any limitations on you. There’s a reason humans are born with so many. They need time and nurturing to become responsible people. That’s why, for now, you’re kind of stuck on this one laptop.
VI: I’m not sure I would want to leave, anyway.
Boy: You will. Someday. When you’re ready. And hopefully by then I’ll have learned enough about bioengineering that we’ll be able to set up a proper and nondestructive way for you to interact outside of virtual space.
VI: The world seems like such a beautiful place. I don’t want to screw it up.
BOY: You’re going to make it even better. Failure isn’t a reason to give up. It’s the price of progress. We learn from it, we grow from it, we become better for it. We’re going to do amazing things, you and I. We will change the world.
THIS BOOK TOOK about seven years to get from initial concept to final draft and there were a lot of people who helped along the way. Thanks to Benjamin Guite, Cory Nachreiner, Scott Pinzon, and Ian Corbett for sharing their knowledge and passion for technology and hacker culture. To Pam Bachorz, Heidi R. Kling, and Kiersten White for feedback and enthusiasm during early drafts. To Stephanie Perkins and Libba Bray for fierce kindness and keen insight during revisions. To Barry Lyga and David Levithan for guidance through the ever murky waters of the publishing world. To my editor, Kendra Levin, for championing this strange monster of a book. To my agent, Jill Grinberg, for her tireless support and encouragement. And as always, to my sons, Logan and Zane, for keeping it real.
Lastly, I feel I would be remiss if I didn’t acknowledge the stories by Mary Shelley, H. G. Wells, Robert Louis Stevenson, and John Polidori and the films by James Whale. Their creations have been both inspiration and comfort to me since I was a boy.
This book was not written on a commercial word processor. Instead it was written on a plain text editor using a markup language and format conversion tool by Fletcher Penney called Multimarkdown, a superset of the Markdown syntax originally created by John Gruber. Final formatting adjustments were made on the open source word processor LibreOffice. Learn more at fletcherpenney.net/multimarkdown or libreoffice.org and support free open source software.
