The base should have been empty by now; but after the attack and crash, the moving of equipment and personnel was put on hold. Now, maybe it was on hold indefinitely. Men were actually moving some of the equipment back into place. A confused and on edge base was in the process of taking up their old routines with a few exceptions.
"He acted just like he should have," Dr. Little said as he sat uneasily in his chair. "Lewis is a smart man. He would have stayed out of direct contact with the civilian population. He would be fully aware of what kind of panic it would cause were he to be seen by the public."
"And the bit with the radio?" Lt. Col. Holmes asked, sitting across the room. He sat back with one hand laying across the arm of the chair and the other braced thoughtfully against his cheek.
"Lewis is an expert electrical engineer. He did design and build an advanced electric brain, after all. I doubt a radio would be that hard for him.... intellectually. The Legionnaire Mark I body isn't designed to be functional enough for the dexterity necessary for many jobs of that sort, which would explain the poor craftsmanship."
"Dr. Little," Holmes said as he leaned forward, "I have to point out that you are referring to the machine as...."
"Don't," the doctor backed away. His eyes immediately turned away from the officer as he put his hands up. "I don't want to hear what you're about to say. I was told that my best friend was dead first thing this morning. Now, I've spent almost an hour having the same kind of conversation I've had day in and day out with him with the machine that he and I designed and built with over a decade's worth of work. I'm not in the mood for what you've got to say or for what you're trying to get me to say."
"Then tell me how it would be possible."
"I want to talk to the general."
"He's not coming," Holmes matter-of-factly told the scientist. "He'll have to remain on base to fend off any of the rumors and reports coming in about our robot's actions today as well as other developing situations. I'm currently in charge of this facility and this investigation. You will talk to me. According to the official paperwork we have on this project, Lt. Col. Davis was the one who had his brain 'mapped' for the prototype. On top of that, it is only supposed to record and duplicate specific skills and not a person's entire personality. Now, convince me that it really is Dr. Faber in there."
"Ask him."
"I'm asking you."
Little took a deep, calming breath. "The situation as Lewis tells me is that after the plane had crashed, he realized that he was dieing. The Legionnaire was close and partially out of its crate. He opened the main interface and overrode all safety protocols for a quick boot of the main systems. When the robot was still unresponsive, Lewis was able to locate and open the crate with the Neural Mapper and interfaced it directly with the Legionnaire. With safety protocols off line, the barriers set up in the software to prevent a total duplication of the human mind were down, probably even erased."
"So, it's your contention that the software and hardware Faber designed is now working as him?"
"Yes," Dr. Little slowly nodded. "Neither the hardware nor the software were designed for a full mind transference. The act over wrote much of the ancillary systems programing leaving you with a machine incapable of using any weapons systems even if they were armed. The problem is...."
"The problem is that you want me to believe that a man's mind in trapped in a military war machine," Holmes interrupted. "A machine that is no longer capable of doing the job the US Army spent billions of dollars for it to do."
"No! The problem is that there isn't enough memory left. The longer he's operational, the more memory he'll use up until there is no more. Then, most likely, the software will begin over writing old data with new. It will begin to cannibalize his mind."
