Building Baby Brother (continued)

Several days passed. The question of Gavin's eventual fate continued to weigh heavily on my mind. No matter what else I might be doing, my thoughts kept returning to that conversation in the workshop. Yet, even as the time passed, I was no closer to an answer.

Not surprisingly, it was Josh who led me to part of the answer.

He arrived home from school one afternoon and announced, "Dad, I need to go to the library."

I looked up from the kitchen counter where I was preparing his pre-homework snack.

"What for? Can't you use your computer to find whatever you need?"

Josh shook his head in annoyance.

"No," he replied, dropping his backpack to the floor as he settled into a chair at the kitchen bar. "Mrs. Fox wants us to use real books for this assignment."

Real books.

The way he said it nearly made me laugh.

How fast the generations change . . .

“Real books” were all I had to work from when I was his age. For Josh and his classmates, though, home computers and worldwide internet access were as nearly commonplace as AM radios had been in the era I grew up in.

"Okay," I told him. "We'll go as soon as you finish your snack."

I poured him a glass of juice and placed a plate before him.

"Thanks, Dad," he said, and began eating.

"No problem," I murmured, and tousled his hair lightly with one hand.

I watched him attack the food on his plate as if he hadn’t seen any real sustenance in days.

Oh terrific, I thought. Another growing spurt. The next thing you know, he'll be old enough to take himself to the library . . .

There was the answer.

Not a complete answer, perhaps, but definitely part of the solution to Gavin's dilemma.

My mind raced, tracing through the necessary steps. After several more moments of watching Josh eat, I began to shift impatiently from one foot to the other.

We had to go. So we could come back. So I could test my idea.

Josh cocked his head in my direction.

"Dad? Are you okay?"

I could not suppress the smile.

"Yeah. I'm quite okay." I waited only a moment. "Are you ready to go yet?"

Building Baby Brother (continued)

“Josh wants me to meet his friends.”

He paused. Every time he did that, I assumed it was a delay caused by him accessing and processing needed data, but sometimes I wondered.

“They are different from him in some ways, so my current data is not sufficient.”

“I can understand that,” I said, nodding in agreement.

I thought about that for a moment.

“Do you want to meet his friends?”

“I want to fulfill my programming.”

His voice, even though it lacked intonation, sounded to me as plaintive, almost pleading.

Although I had developed his original programming, I couldn’t help but feel that there was something that I missed. Gavin had already demonstrated skills beyond what I had intended. What else was he capable of?

“And what are you programmed to do?”

He continued to stare at me. If he had been capable of expressing puzzlement, I think he would have done so.

“To learn how to interact with human beings. To understand their behavior so that my responses to them are appropriate.”

I studied Gavin. Both of those were clear statements of fact—and completely in line with how I believed I had programmed him.

“Why?”

He was silent for several moments. As long as the delay felt to me, it was no doubt a much longer time for him.

“I do not know.”

I started to open my mouth to protest—and then closed it slowly.

In that moment, I realized that he was right. All I had ever intended Gavin for was to be a companion for Josh—an experimental plaything designed to serve no other purpose. Someday, I realized, Josh would grow beyond the need for Gavin—and Gavin would not grow up with him. When that happened, when Gavin essentially became an outgrown, discarded toy, what would I do with him?

I stood there for several minutes, while Gavin regarded me silently. As much data as he might have collected about my behavior, I don’t think he knew what was troubling me.

"Gavin," I spoke softly, unsure of my own voice, my own words. "I think that's it for now."

Gavin merely stared at me, and then nodded.

Building Baby Brother (continued)

The next morning, after Josh had left for school, I brought Gavin down to my workshop. Like night time, it was the ideal time for me to make adjustments to his hardware or test out some of the more complex modifications to his programming. This time, though, I just wanted to talk to him.

I sat him up on the workbench and connected him to the diagnostic equipment, as usual. This time, though, I also activated the options to provide more detailed system activity logs. Essentially—and I felt a twinge of guilt over this—I was connecting him to a possible lie detector. Later, I could study the reports and learn which routines and data Gavin used while conversing with me. They would show what information he used and, perhaps even more important, what he decided to discard or not share when he responded to my questions.

I studied Gavin quietly for several moments, completely uncertain how to begin. He sat perched on the edge of workbench, watching me silently. His eyes tracked me as I busied myself—mostly unnecessarily—with the various systems around the workshop.

Eventually, I realized I was accomplishing nothing, only stalling for time. I stopped and stood in front of Gavin, taking what I hoped was a firm, but neutral, stance.

“Gavin?”

His eyes locked on my face. It was still disconcerting, even after all this time, to have him stare at me that way. Josh’s mother had said more than once that it gave her the creeps; it never seemed to bother Josh. At least it gave the impression that I had his undivided attention, even if I knew the logs would show otherwise.

“I want to ask you a few questions,” I said. “Just to test some of your systems.”

I was certain that my attempt at deception showed in my expression or mannerisms. Nonetheless, I stumbled onward.

“Okay.”

He answered blandly, giving no indication at all whether he considered this a complete waste of his time, as any young boy might in the same situation.

I considered him carefully, my lips pressed tightly together. I had silently rehearsed this exchange in my mind several times during the past few hours. Still, my reluctance to begin it was almost palpable.

Finally, I asked him, “What is my name?”

“Dad.”

He stated simply, without even the slightest inflection of affection. I knew he wasn’t capable of yet, but that didn’t make it any less unnerving.

I frowned. “Why do you call me that and not by my name?"

“Because,” he said. “That is what Josh calls you.”

“Explain.”

There was a very slight pause before he answered.

“According to the information I have access to, it is considered inappropriate and disrespectful for children to address their parents by their given names.”

He sounded as though he were reciting the statement directly from a textbook.

“True,” I agreed, forcing back a faint smile.

I looked at him, trying not to stare as a new, slightly chilling realization came to me.

“Do you consider yourself my son?”

He blinked automatically, but gave no other indication of what he might be thinking.

“Yes.”

“Explain.” The command came out before I could stop it.

“You created me, just like you created Josh.”

I could not help but chuckle, but the presumably unintentional humor did little to relieve my growing unease.

“It was a bit different that time.”

“Yes.”

This conversation was not going in any of the directions that I had imagined that it would.

My brain told me that I was discussing this with what was essentially a glorified computer system: an organized collection of circuits, cables, and digital storage. My eyes—and to some extent, my heart—told me that I was having this discussion with a young boy.

“Gavin,” I went on. “Where did you learn that—about it being ‘inappropriate and disrespectful’?”

“It was included in my initial data storage.”

I nodded, remembering then that I had included access to an encyclopedia and dictionary as part of his original data. So that made sense. Something else, though, didn’t.

“Gavin,” I wondered aloud, “how did you learn to modify that game?”

“Josh showed me.”

“Oh,” I responded softly.

I think I was somehow disappointed that there wasn’t a deeper, more complex answer.

“How?”

“He showed me on his computer.”

“On his computer?” I asked, frowning.

“Yes,” Gavin replied.

“Explain.”

“He showed me how to find information using his computer. He said I could use it to learn anything—like when he goes to school.”

“I suppose so,” I said thoughtfully. “Do you want to learn?”

“I do not go to school.” Gavin stated. “But I need information.”

“Why?”

“To comply with my programming.”

I nearly froze. I’m certain that it meant it literally, but that phrase carried with it too many echoes from too many stories.

“In what way?” I managed to ask past a tight throat.

When he did not respond immediately, I choked out, “Explain.”

“I need to continue to develop my skills when I interact with people. I cannot do this if I do not have access to information about how they behave.”

“You interact with us,” I gestured toward the ceiling, to the house above. “Quite well, I might add.”

I smiled with some pride. After all, he was my creation who had achieved this level of proficiency.

“Yes,” Gavin responded.

He stared at me as if awaiting permission to continue. I nodded.

“Go on.”

“I can interact with you because I can observe you and draw correlations between those observations and your expected behavior.”

“Yes,” I agreed, although I was not a bit puzzled. “I don’t understand the problem, then.”

Gavin continued to stare at me. I know it was merely a result of his programming—my programming, but it was still unnerving.

“Explain.”

Building Baby Brother (continued)

I tried to explain those away, but it was difficult not to see them as a warning. Some purveyors of parenting wisdom claim that secrets lead next to lying, and then to other things bad and evil—in the same way that fear ultimately leads to the Dark Side of the Force.

Maybe it was my own naiveté, but I refused to read any evil intent into Gavin’s decision to protect that privileged information. He had simply followed his programming, plain and simple. Yet, as straightforward as my mental resolution to the dilemma might be, the issues it raised were not.

My original plan for Gavin was to give him enough functionality so that he could interact to some level with people and, to some degree, increase his knowledge and experience so that he might improve those skills. What I found within Gavin’s “mind”, though, told me that I had been more than successful in that regard. Where I had not thought to provide him with programming to deal with specific situations—such as how to keep secrets—he had devised ones of his own. I could not help but be impressed—and just a little worried.

I had not programmed Gavin to lie. I also realized then that I had not instructed him to always tell the truth. I could do it, I knew: update his programming so that he would always tell the truth. If I did, though, I might irrevocably alter how he behaved, who he was.

I couldn’t do it.

Instead, it made be consider the questions: Under what conditions might Gavin choose to lie or otherwise withhold the truth? What set of conditions might make him determine that it was the correct response to a situation?

As far as I knew, he had never been placed in such a situation. Or if he had, he had chosen silence to any other response. If he had, in fact, ever lied, I had not caught him at it. Josh had never mentioned it, but then he might not have thought to.

I considered checking the activity logs, hoping they might contain something that might help me answer those questions. When I glanced at the clock, though, I discovered that it was late—far later than I had realized. Searching through the logs, particularly when I had no clear idea what I was looking for, could easily take several hours. That was more than my fatigued brain could manage.

With a sigh, I shut down the directory displays and then reset the system to link back to Gavin’s body. As usual, he would “awake” when Josh did in a few hours. In the meantime, I would try to get some sleep. Perhaps my mind would find in slumber the answers it was unable to while awake.

I didn’t have high hopes of that.

Building Baby Brother (continued)

I felt suddenly light-headed as my heart realized the truth before my mind did.

Secrets.

Gavin was keeping secrets.

These files must contain all of the information that Josh had shared with his synthetic little brother and then sworn him to secrecy.

Swear to God and hope to die . . .

These were only a few dozen of these files. I ached to know their contents, but after a few additional futile attempts to glean their contents, I surrendered. It would take a lot more time and brain power than I was capable of at the moment.

I was surprised to discover that some of these files were associated with me. At least I think they were. Gavin’s method of file storage was not always straightforward. I pondered these, trying to recall any occasions where I might have asked Gavin to keep something a secret. It wasn’t as though as I used Gavin as a surrogate confidante. While he could be unquestioningly objective, he lacked even the smallest iota of empathy.

It was with some small measure of relief when the answer dawned on me. I chuckled softly as I realized what those files in my directory probably contained.

More than once, I had probably said something to the effect of “… but don’t tell your Mom. Okay?” to the boys. It was intended to be a harmless remark, a cover for some minor indiscretion in parenting that I thought she might not approve of—you know, something like considering double banana splits a suitable dinner.

Gavin, though, could only interpret such an instruction one way. So, he had accepted had taken my meaning literally and then secured the information the only way he knew how. He could retrieve the information, should he ever need it, but no one else short of a master hacker ever could.

One thing that several decades worth of science fiction stories have taught us: when a computer-based intelligence starts to keep secrets—especially from its creator—it is rarely a good sign.

Maybe it was my own naiveté, but I refused to read any evil intent into Gavin’s decision to protect that privileged information. He had simply followed his programming, plain and simple. Yet, as straightforward as my mental resolution to the dilemma might be, the issues it raised were not.

Building Baby Brother (continued)

At first, I was a bit disappointed by what I found. It was disheartening—and a little eerie—to see emotional responses distilled down to a series of visual observations and time-related data. He had boiled them down to patterns of causes and effects. Some of the data was understandably contradictory; some of it was fascinating. The damned thing was: a lot of his conclusions were dead on.

For example, we had long suspected that when Josh would suddenly burst into tears with little provocation, it was a sign that he wasn’t feeling well; he just hadn’t quite realized it yet. It was interesting to see that hypothesis verified so objectively, complete with the physiological data to back it up.

It was also humbling to learn that I tended to wear gray a lot on days when Josh wasn’t with me. His mother, apparently, tended to dress primarily in purple on days when she would drop him off back with me. Her attire on days when she picked him up varied widely; I guessed that depended on what was going on with her at work that day.

I leaned back in my chair, feeling a deep sense of melancholy. A lifetime of experience, and I couldn’t see something that a child essentially only a few months old could immediately recognize.

Out of the mouths of babes . . .

Or, in this case: out of the digital mind of artificial children.

What other insights, I wondered, were buried among those sets of ones and zeros in Gavin’s permanent storage?

I poked deeper into the contents of Gavin’s memory.

This must be what it’s like to have telepathic powers, to have the contents of someone’s mind completely opened up to you.

It was a heady and terrifying experience. I had already learned some uncomfortable truths. Who knew what else I might find nested among the myriad directories of data?

As I probed further, I discovered a collection of files that I could not identify.

After several unsuccessful attempts to open them, I realized that they might be data files that would require a compatible application in order for me to read their contents in any meaningful way. Viewing them in raw hexadecimal format told me nothing, but that was hardly surprising. That discovery, however, made me study them even more closely.

After a few more futile tries to view their contents, I realized that the file were encrypted—heavily so.

Why would Gavin do that?

I didn’t remember installing any encryption protocols along with his programming. It was possible that there was included in the core operating system that I had used. In fact, I realized, they probably were. I just never thought that he might have reason to use them. However, I had not given him any instructions not to.

Building Baby Brother (continued)

Interesting.

And harmless enough, I decided. I took one last look at the unexpected merging of two science fictional universes on the screen and, shaking my head, left the room.

#

That evening, long after Josh had gone to bed, I sat alone in my workshop.

I had been unable to sleep, my mind troubled by something that hovered just beyond the edge of conscious understanding. As my eyes moved between the displays and the collection of printouts laid out in front of me, the impact of what I had created, for the first time, truly hit me.

It wasn’t the technical aspect of what I had achieved, although that was certainly notable enough. I could probably file for at least a half dozen patents for my work there. No, it was something far more profound.

I had created Gavin to be a semi-aware companion for Josh. I had programmed him to listen to Josh’s instructions and respond to them. In fact, I had programmed him to listen to anyone’s instructions and respond appropriately to them. I had programmed him to store the information so that he could improve his response for the next time. I had taught him to learn—and learn, apparently, he had.

I couldn’t help but feel that the modification that he had made to the game was just the tip of the proverbial iceberg. What else had he learned? I wondered. What conclusions, if any, had he drawn from the data he had gathered?

Curiosity ate at me now. I had to know.

After making certain that Josh was soundly asleep, I placed Gavin into standby mode. I then downloaded a copy of his internal data to a drive completely independent of his systems. While I waited for that to finish, I began looking to see what data he had found worthy of committing to permanent storage.

Poking around his file system, I found it generally the way I had originally designed it. There were directories assigned to each of the key individuals in his life: Josh, myself, and—somewhat to my surprise—Josh’s mother. I couldn’t imagine that there would be much data there, as she had steadfastly refused to allow Josh to bring him along during the weekends when she had custody. As far as I knew, her interactions with Gavin had been very few and far between.

I also found new directories dedicated to other things. Some of these I should have expected: personal interactions, information about the world, procedures for accomplishing specific tasks (including game play techniques, I noted with a quiet grin). There were also ones that surprised me, constructed around understanding emotions and goals.

Feeling a faint chill, I hesitantly began to probe the contents of those directories. A small, niggling voice tried to convince me that this was an invasion of privacy, like reading someone’s private diary. I was able to mute that quietly persistent cricket chirp of conscience with the rationalization that Gavin was not a person, that what I was doing was no different than examining any other database. That voice proved to be surprisingly difficult to silence.

Building Baby Brother (continued)

I took a deep breath, reforming my fractured composure. After a moment, I glanced at Josh and then back toward the screen. I started to rise, intending to offer a vague excuse that I had chores to finish, but that I’d be back later.

Something about the images of the ships darting around on the screen caught my eye. I couldn’t remember seeing them in the game before. At first, I was ready to dismiss it as some achievement upgrade that Josh and I had never reached. (I never said that we were good.) Then, my eyes widened in recognition.

There was a reason that I had never seen the ships that the boys were flying before: they didn’t belong in that game. They were part of some other fictional universe entirely. The effect was both jarring and, yet, mildly provocative. It was like Aslan making an appearance in the Land of Oz.

“Josh?” I asked, surprised to hear a faint tremor in my voice. “Where did those ships come from?”

“We made them,” Josh replied without turning his attention away from the screen.

Made them?

“How?”

“On the computer.”

My eyes moved to the game console, but I knew he didn’t mean that. Josh knew the difference between that and the computer that sat on his desk. My forehead furrowed with a frown.

“How did you do that?”

“Gavin did.”

He seemed to think that his statement signified nothing special.

Gavin did?

I sat silently, trying to put the pieces together. I felt like it should make sense, but the logic was not readily apparent. So, I tried again.

“How did you do it on the computer?”

“Gavin showed me how.”

Still, Josh did not face me. I don’t think he feared reprisal as much as he felt the matter simply didn’t warrant that much of his attention.

“How did he do that?”

“On that page,” Josh explained. A mild note of annoyance slipped into his tone. “The one you showed me . . . with the clues for the games.”

I felt a slight flush of embarrassment at that. I had bookmarked a site where he could find hints for times when he was completely stuck and couldn’t get past some obstacle on a game. (Yes, I admit that I have used it too. Some of those games are hard!)

It now started to make sense. Some of those sites also provided additional downloads, including modifications that could be applied to the games to produce a variety of effects that the original designers might never have intended. Some were officially sanctioned; others, for some very good reasons, were not.

Building Baby Brother (continued)

In the span of only a few weeks, Josh and I had gone from “Dad, do you want to play?” to “Dad, do you want to watch?” By constructing Gavin, I had fashioned my own replacement in parts of Josh’s life—parts that I had not, until that moment, realized how much I cherished. It was then that I recognized as well that I had allowed Gavin to become my surrogate. I used him to keep Josh entertained so that I could complete housework chores without interruption and also pursue my own projects. I had not spent nearly the amount of time that I normally would have with my son.

Occasionally, Josh would look over at me. Nothing in his glance told me that I was unwelcome. If anything, he seemed comforted to see that I was still there. I took some comfort in that. I had always known that, someday, this would happen. I had rather expected it to be when he was a bit older than this, when he entered high school perhaps, not now.

“Dad?”

Josh’s voice was soft and quiet, but it still managed to break through my reverie.

I looked at him and managed to focus. It took me a moment to recognize what impaired my vision. I blinked back tears, clearing my eyes.

“Is something wrong?”

He leaned forward. His face was filled with concern.

“Fine,” I told him, nodding slightly. “I’m fine.”

He looked dubious. I managed a small, but sincere, smile. That seemed to reassure him.

I took a deep breath, reforming my fractured composure. I glanced toward the screen. There seemed to be a break in the action.

Building Baby Brother (continued)

Several days later, on my way past Josh’s bedroom with a basketful of clean laundry, I paused and glanced inside. It had been an unseasonably overcast and sporadically rainy day, so I had allowed them to remain indoors. They were playing a video game that involved fast-moving spaceships and shooting things.

I noticed almost immediately that they never said a word to one another. They communicated instead, it seemed, through a series of almost sub-vocal grunts and hissing noises. I also noticed that Gavin’s coordination had greatly improved since the last time I watched them play. Josh was clearly much smoother in his motions, but Gavin appeared to be reacting a bit more quickly. Restricted by his limited dexterity, he compensated with sharp movements of his arms and hands that thrust them against the game controller toggles.

Josh’s eyes flicked for a moment from the screen to the doorway and then back again. He smiled even as he turned away.

“Hi, Dad. Want to watch?”

I smiled, feeling a warm glow to know that, even with Gavin’s presence, I was still included as part of his world.

“Sure.”

Leaving the laundry basket in the hallway, I walked in. Stepping carefully over discarded toys and game discs, I found a spot on the carpet where I could lean with my back against a wall as I sat on the floor. With my eyes alternating between the action taking place on the screen and the boys, I watched them play for several minutes.

The game didn’t seem that complex (although that was probably easy to claim without a controller in my hands). The two boys, I noticed, flew their ships as a team. One maneuvered to trap enemy ships, while the other pilot destroyed them. It was particularly interesting to watch them occasionally switch roles without a word spoken. If these two boys ever became actual fighter pilots, there are several nations on Earth who should just surrender right now and be done with it.

The two of them advanced from one level to the next and, as I watched, I noticed a profound sense of sadness beginning to fill me. It took me several moments of pointed introspection to understand why.

Building Baby Brother (continued)

All did not go exactly well.

I was able to make all of the necessary repairs with materials I had on hand, but it did require more than a little improvisation. From the outside, I didn’t think anyone would notice the difference. I guess that was the most important thing, particularly for Josh.

Josh came back down and quietly ate his snack while sitting on the stairs. He watched me for a while and, I think, seeing the whole repair process in action calmed his fears quite a bit. While I was at it, I also installed some minor software upgrades that I had been saving for the next time Gavin needed maintenance.

When I was ready to restart Gavin’s systems, I picked up the remote control and gestured to Josh. He came down the stairs and stood next to me. I held out the remote control.

“Do you want to do it?”

He eyed the control warily. He seemed to be struggling with the decision, but I gave him time.

Finally, he reached out, but did not take the remote control. Instead, he stabbed at the power control button and then snatched his finger back as if it had bitten him.

A moment later, much like the first time that I had activated him, there came the faint sounds of Gavin’s internal systems coming back to life.

His eyes began to blink again. I breathed a sigh, surprised at just how relieved I was to see that. He turned his head from one side to the other until he found Josh.

Josh grinned and turned to me, his face beaming. “Thanks, Dad!”

I smiled back at him, feeling very pleased with myself.

“No problem, kiddo.”

I looked at the two of them silently for a moment.

“Want me to carry him upstairs for you?”

“I can do it.”

The confidence in his voice made me smile.

“All right then,” I agreed, and lifted Gavin into a sitting position.

Josh helped as best he could and then backed up against the table. Gavin reached one arm over each of Josh’s shoulders. Josh gripped each of Gavin’s forearms and moved forward. I then watched as Josh climbed the stairs, slightly hunched over, Gavin fearlessly clinging to his back.

I turned to put away my tools and throw out the damaged parts, relishing that moment of joy. I was grinning despite my best efforts not to.

There were still times when Dad could fix everything.

Building Baby Brother (continued)

I met Josh’s eyes. With my best, confident smile, I told him, “There’s no reason why he shouldn’t once I’m done fixing him.”

“Grandpa John didn’t wake up,” Josh said quietly.

My smile faded. I stroked his cheek gently.

“I know.” I sighed lightly. “But remember that Grandpa John was very old. Sometimes that happens to old people. Gavin isn’t old.”

I turned slowly to look down at Gavin with dawning insight.

“Actually, Josh,” I said, suddenly feeling a bit more optimistic. “As long I can get the parts to repair him, there’s no reason that Gavin can’t live almost forever.”

“Really?” He asked, awed by the concept.

I nodded, keeping to myself the possible implications of this sudden realization.

Josh studied Gavin. A very thoughtful expression formed on his face.

“Will he dream?”

I glanced at Gavin lying silently on the workbench. Even he seemed to be awaiting my answer.

“I don’t think so.”

Even as I said it, I had to admit to myself that I wasn’t entirely certain. Without any power at all flowing through his systems, Gavin should become just an inert collection of electronic components. For him, the passage of time should only be apparent by checking the differences logged by his internal clock.

Josh’s frown deepened.

“So he is going to die.” It came out as a statement, not a question.

“No.”

I desperately wanted to end this line of questioning. I never do well debating philosophy with children—I tend to lose.

“It will be like when you had your tonsils removed,” I explained. “You went to sleep for a little while and then woke up.”

His face twisted slightly at the memory.

“I didn’t like that. It made me feel all yucky. And my throat hurt.”

I smiled gently. “I remember.”

I took Josh’s hand and held it as I turned back to look at Gavin.

“It shouldn’t be anything like that at all for Gavin. He doesn’t really feel pain. At least,” I explained, hoping he wouldn’t ask for details, “not in the same way we do.”

Josh stepped over to the bench and studied Gavin’s face. Gavin’s eyes tracked his every movement.

“Is that why he’s not crying now?”

“Yes.”

Josh glanced at Gavin, who seemed to stare back at him with completely trust and understanding. Josh looked at me, back at Gavin, and then back at me.

“Trust me,” I told him, tightening my grip on his hand slightly. “It will be okay.”

He did not seem entirely convinced. I didn’t know what else to say. Maybe this is what surgeons feel like ever time they enter the operating room.

“Do you want to tell him?” I asked Josh, gesturing toward Gavin.

Josh shook his head emphatically. His eyes widened again and he looked a little scared.

I rose and approached the workbench. I focused on everything that did not make him a real boy: the unnatural hair, the plastic skin. It helped. A little.

“I’m going to turn you off for a while so I can see if I can fix your arm,” I told him. “Okay?”

Gavin merely blinked at me.

I pressed the button on the remote control.

Several graphs on the nearby displays changed. The only noticeable change in Gavin was that he stopped blinking. He remained open, but I knew that they had no awareness, were no longer collecting data. Still, he seemed as though his soul had left him.

I found myself staring down at him, promising myself that I would no longer do this any more often than was absolutely necessary.

Forcing myself to turn away, I saw Josh staring at Gavin, clearly trying not cry. I patted him on the shoulder with what I hoped was reassurance.

“Why don’t you run upstairs and get a snack?” I suggested. “This could take a while.”

Josh continued to stare at Gavin. Then, with obvious reluctance, he turned and slowly made his way up the stairs. He kept looking back at the figure lying on the workbench before disappearing back up into the house.

Building Baby Brother (continued)

Entering the workshop, I was relieved to see that the bench was already covered with a blanket. Gavin would be bit more comfortable than on the bare metal. It didn’t occur to me at the time just how ridiculous that thought was.

I laid him down gently, leaving his damaged arm to dangle loosely over the edge of the platform. For a moment, I was tempted to see if I could just twist and turn it back into position, but quickly recognized that by doing so, I might just worsen the damage.

Stepping back from the workbench, I tried to study the situation with a more detached eye. I was going to need to open him up in order to find out exactly what had broken and fix it. I might even have to remove his arm entirely.

I glanced over at Josh. Even though Gavin wasn’t real—and I think Josh understood that—I wasn’t sure he was ready see that. It felt like having him present at a surgical procedure. There would be no blood and organs, only circuits and wires, but still . . .

I reached for the handheld controller that I programmed for remote access to Gavin’s systems. It was pointed at Gavin, my thumb poised on the button that would start the power down sequence, when I felt a sharp tug on my wrist.

“Dad?” Josh asked me. His voice was high, his eyes bright with alarm. “What are you doing?”

I looked dumbly down at the remote control in my hand, and then at Josh. Understanding blossomed for me. I lowered the device and knelt down to Josh’s level. I held up the remote control so that he could see it clearly. It looked a lot like the ones we had around the house for the television sets and disc players.

“I’m going to shut Gavin down so it’ll be easier to fix him.”

Josh’s eyes grew even brighter. “Is he going to die?”

I could tell that he was deeply serious.

“No,” I told him, shaking my head gently while I fought back a soft chuckle. “Once he’s fixed, I’ll just restart him. Kind of like turning on a light switch.”

This seemed a reassure Josh a little.

“So it’ll be like he’s asleep?”

“Exactly,” I nodded.

“What you if you can’t wake him back up?”

I frowned.

During Gavin’s construction, I had turned him off and back on an uncounted numbers of times. (Actually, they were probably counted in the status logs somewhere.) Almost all of them had happened without incident. The few that didn’t were usually the results of some error of mine during his early design. I didn’t see any reason why this repair process shouldn’t go smoothly. I also knew, though, that occasionally, even under the best circumstances, things did go wrong—sometimes for not apparent reason.

Building Baby Brother (continued)

I wanted to ask him . . . something. My lips refused to move as my mind struggled with what to say. Perhaps part of me was afraid to break the illusion by hearing a stream of complex diagnostic information reported through that boyish mouth.

In the end, I said nothing as I knelt down to the grass.

Josh stood to one side. His eyes were bright from pent-up tears.

“I’m sorry, Dad,” he said, choking on the words. “It was an accident—honest. I don’t know . . .”

He trailed off as I hugged him close. His face pressed into my chest as he burst into long-held sobs. I stroked his hair and whispered reassuring things to him, letting him that I wasn’t angry, that accidents happen.

Eventually, Josh’s crying faded to sniffles. He slowly pushed himself away from me, his eyes red and face still damp from his tears. He wiped at his cheeks and looked down at Gavin.

“Dad?” he asked. His voice caught with a soft, shuddering sigh. “Will he be okay?”

I glanced over at Gavin. He still lay there silently on the grass. Whatever had happened, it didn’t seem to be causing any immediate or possibly catastrophic problems with his main systems.

I looked back at Josh, met his eyes, and smiled.

“Sure,” I said, trying to sound confident. “I’m sure we can fix him up pretty quick.”

Josh’s eyes brightened and he flashed me a smile that expressed a confidence in me that I wished I had.

After I had finished Gavin’s initial construction, there weren’t really that many parts left unused. Some of his original components had been hard enough to come by without being worried about trying to get any extras for spares. There were a few that might be scavenged from, but those were mostly from early designs that I built and then abandoned when they turned out to be not quite what I wanted.

I lifted Gavin up from the grass. Josh followed me silently as I carried him back to the basement workshop. Gavin said nothing. He only blinked up at me with an eerily blank expression.

Building Baby Brother (continued)

I busied myself with various household chores while the boys played. They had been outside for about an hour when I heard Josh call out.

“Dad!”

His voice seemed to carry only a mild tone of urgency. I wiped my hands on a nearby dish towel, dropped it on the counter, and walked toward the screen door.

“DAD!”

Now, I began to hurry.

Reaching the door, I spied Josh standing in the middle of the yard, near the play structure that he still loved. It took me a moment to realize that the shape on the ground near his feet was Gavin. I broke into a run, nearly skidding onto my knees as I reached the two of them.

Gavin lay on the ground. His eyes stared up at the sky. I felt as wave of relief when I saw that they still blinked randomly, as they were programmed to do.

Building Baby Brother (continued)

He carried his artificial sibling on his back as if he were toting a backpack. One of its arms was draped over each Josh’s shoulders. Josh was bent over like a dwarf hunchback, clutching the two arms together against his chest with his free hand.

I was tempted to bound over to help him, but I could tell that he was determined to accomplish this himself. I continued to watch his progress, breathing a sigh of relief when he made it down from the last step.

Josh looked surprised, and then grinned in his triumph. He had apparently been so engrossed in his efforts that he had seen me there. I smiled in return. His grin grew even larger at seeing that I was not about to scold him. I probably should have, but it simply didn’t cross my mind at that moment.

With a renewed alacrity, Josh carried his new mechanical brother into the kitchen.

#

And so it went for several weeks.

Josh spent a lot of time with his new synthetic sibling. He never once gave voice to any complaints about its limitations. If anything, he treated Gavin with the care and attention that he had always promised that he would give to a flesh-and-blood equivalent.

For the most part, they did the things that young boys do: created amazing constructions with Lego blocks, played video games, and watched television. Actually, except for the last, Josh did most of the creating and playing, while Gavin watched.

One early summer afternoon, though, things changed.

I had sent the boys outside to play. It wasn’t that Gavin needed fresh air and sunshine, but Josh did. After expressing some mild reluctance at being separated from his current video game, Josh agreed to spend some time with Gavin out in the backyard and away from the television screen. With practiced ease, he maneuvered Gavin into the second-hand wheelchair I had purchased, and headed outside.

As they stepped into the early summer sunlight, I realized that, before we got too much further into summer, I might need to figure out a solution to making Gavin water-resistant. It was unlikely that Josh would be willing go swimming without his brother. Sealing him up in a large garbage bag, while possibly effective, was also impractical.

Heck, I thought, if they can do it to watches, I can do it for Gavin. It was just a matter of scale.

I also knew that it wasn’t quite that easy.

Building Baby Brother (continued)

Besides, there was nothing to say that someday it might not be true.

"Good morning," I said quietly, giving him a quick hug.

Like his mother, he's not usually much of a morning person, so it's best to start slow.

"Any idea what you want for breakfast?"

He considered the question with surprising gravity.

"Gavin and I would like pancakes this morning."

Gavin?

After my initial surprise wore off, I mentally shrugged.

It made sense that our new family member needed a name, so why not that one? But I did wonder: Why that one?

I looked Josh over, considered asking him, and then decided to hold off until later. I then glanced at the clock. There wasn't time for flapjacks from scratch, but I was pretty sure we had some just-add-water mix left over from a camping trip.

"Okay," I said, in response to his breakfast request. “But you can’t dawdle over them.”

Josh nodded his agreement.

"I'm going to go get Gavin now," he said.

I agreed without thinking about it, busying myself with the preparations for breakfast. It took several moments before my mind caught up with what Josh had said.

Several precognitive scenes crashed through my mind: Josh dragging Gavin down the stairs, the mechanical boy’s head bumping against each of the steps as they descended; Josh attempting to carry Gavin down the stairs in the same manner that I had carried him up, and tumbling head over heels down them—Gavin would probably not be damaged by such a fall, but Josh certainly could be.

I dashed for the stairs before my mind could conjure up even more dire scenarios.

I didn’t make it.

I froze halfway into the room as I saw a small hand clutch the banister. Josh’s shoe and pant leg came into view. It approached the surface of the next step with slow deliberation. I felt as though I was viewing the scene in slow motion—almost always a pretense that something terrible about to happen.

The other leg descended in the same manner and I found that I could breathe. I could not will myself to move, but at least I wouldn’t pass out.

Josh’s torso appeared. His hand kept a firm hold on the banister rail, easing its grip only just enough to move down to the next step. As his head came into view, I wanted to laugh out loud, both in relief and in appreciation of my son’s cleverness.

Building Baby Brother (continued)

Entering Josh’s bedroom, I was surprised to find a clean swath across the middle of his room. My eyes quickly surveyed the space beneath his bed, and then the closet door. I was careful not to look too closely.

Carefully, I settled the small mechanical boy into the rocking chair. He reclined stiffly, limited by the restrictions of his metal anatomy.

I frowned and considered the situation for a moment. It wasn’t as though the posture was causing him any discomfort, but it was just aesthetically wrong.

My eye caught a small decorative pillow that had somehow found its way from my study into the bedroom. I grabbed it and gently slid it between him and the back of the chair. He now sat a bit forward, as if intensely interested in the events happening in the room. It was a small, but noticeable improvement.

Josh had paid attention to none of this. He was busy digging into a small plastic container about twice the size of a traditional shoe box.

He walked over to the figure sitting in the chair, crouched down in front of it, and opened his cupped hands.

“These are Legos,” he said, revealing the small toys like precious treasure.

He set them down in a small pile on the floor in front of the rocking chair. Selecting two of them, he held them up to their mutual eye level.

“They fit together like this,” He explained, as he snapped them together.

Josh held it out the combined pieces.

With a soft whirr, his electric brother’s arm rose. Josh gently placed the piece in its open palm. The hand then rose so that it was almost level with the mechanical boy’s eyes.

He studied the simple construction.

“Legos,” he said a few moments later, signifying his understanding.

Josh beamed, grinning.

“Yes!”

Realizing that his new playmate could not kneel on the floor as he was, he rose and dragged a small plastic table over between them. He then scooped the Lego blocks from the carpet and deposited them onto the table. Returning to the container, he grabbed two additional fistfuls and added those to the pile.

“There,” he said, looking satisfied.

He turned to look at me and his mother.

“You can leave now.”

He said it very matter-of-factly. As far he was concerned, he had the situation completely under control; our participation was no longer required.

He turned away. His attention was now wholly focused on his new playmate, shutting the rest of us out of his world.

I stifled a faint chuckle. Backing out of the room, I caught a glimpse of Carolyn’s expression: she was not nearly as amused. For a moment, I thought she might stubbornly remain behind. When it became clear to her, though, that Josh was going to give us no further part of his attention, she followed me out of the room.

She followed down the stairs and I led her back to the small living room.

“I guess I should be going,” she said.

There was a tight edge to her voice that I took great pains to ignore. Before I could summon up a polite response, she went on.

“I’ll be back last Thursday,” she said, gathering her purse from the coffee table. “So I will be taking him next weekend.”

I nodded. There really wasn’t much to add, as that matched our agreement.

“Have a safe trip,” I offered with genuine sincerity.

“Thanks.”

She turned away and I held the door for her as she left.

I waited until she drove away to close the door. I allowed myself one heartfelt sigh, and the began to ponder what to prepare for dinner.

#

The next morning, when Josh entered the kitchen, he was already dressed for school in jeans and clean shirt. This just added to my surprise at seeing him up so early. I had anticipated having to forcibly roust him from his bed.

He had tried to convince me that it would be best if his new brother slept with him in his room. I tried to explain to him that his new companion didn’t need sleep. Josh then expertly argued that was ideal, as it could stay awake and protect him. I hadn’t really programmed it for that, but I let it pass unchallenged. If believing that made Josh feel safer at night, then I could live with that sin of omission.

Building Baby Brother (continued)

My answer seemed to satisfy Josh. He took a step back from the workbench.

“Can it sit up?”

“Sure!” I replied, grinning again. “But we’ll need to help him up.”

I moved closer to the workbench and slid my hand under its left shoulder.

“Here,” I said, gesturing Josh toward its other side. “Help me sit it up.”

With far more gentle caution than was required, he reached beneath it and helped me (as much as he was able to) shift it into an upright sitting position.

Its legs hung over the edge of the bench. I heard the faint sound of gears locking to hold it upright. There was an eerie similarity to a young boy perched on the edge of an examination table in a doctor’s office. Had I not known better, I might have expected it to attempt to leap down from the platform.

Josh walked back around to where I stood; its head turned to follow him. When he reached me, Josh stopped and once again studied his new playmate.

Without turning, he asked, “Can I take him up to my room?”

“Sure,” I told Josh, smiling. “I don’t see why not.”

Josh moved forward, paused, and then stood, waving his hands in front of him with awkward motions.

“I’ll carry him up,” I offered, chuckling very, very softly. “Why don’t you run up and make sure that your extra chair is empty?”

I doubted that it was. His small rocking chair tended to be the dumping ground for, well, just about anything that he was asked to remove from his bedroom floor. I tried not to think about where everything that it currently held might end up.

“I’ll help you,” his mother said, and followed him up the stairs.

She was left in the proverbial dust. Josh was up and out of sight before she climbed the third step. She paused, turned to look at me with a steady stare, and then continued up the stairs.

For a moment, I stared at where she had been. I released a soft sigh and then turned back toward the workbench.

I lifted my creation, carefully carrying it with one arm underneath his knees and the other supporting his shoulders, leaning against him my chest, just as I would any other child.

He was much lighter than I had remembered, likely weighing even less than Josh did.

His electronic components are not as heavy, collectively, as skin, bone, and muscle. For some reason, that made him seem all the more delicate and fragile.

Building Baby Brother (continued)

Josh stared down at it. He seemed to be caught speechless and then his lips formed a open-mouthed smile.

“Hello, little brother.”

It stared back at him, its eyes blinking.

“Hello, Josh.”

I hadn’t thought his eyes could widen any further, but they did. He smile grew into a grin.

A footstep scraped against the floor behind me. I heard what sounded like a faint cough, or someone clearing their throat without trying to call too much attention to it. In the small space of the basement, it was enough.

I paused, fighting back a sigh before turning around.

Although she would have denied it, I could tell that she was intrigued by my creation. Her eyes fixed on mine. I felt my elation begin to fade, but found it salvaged by Josh’s next question.

“What can it do?” Josh asked me. His words came out in a breathless rush. “Can it walk?”

“Not yet.”

His expression told me that he did not understand.

“There’s some bugs there I still need to work out,” I explained, trying to make it sound like much less of an effort than it really was.

He nodded, but I could tell that he didn’t really understand.

“But,” I continued, “He can talk to you and help you do things. He knows all sorts of things and can learn more. And,” I added quickly, while I still had his attention, “his arms mostly work.”

Josh’s expression asked his question for him.

“They’re not very precise,” I explained.

I reached over to pick up one of the spare ones from a nearby shelf, but then stopped myself. Heaven knows how Josh would have reacted if he had seen the mechanical little boy laying there intact while my hand held one of its extra arms.

I settled for pointing at one of its exposed palms.

The hands were what I considered one of my more clever inspirations—the outer covering for them at least. I had originally planned to use thick latex gloves to cover the mechanism underneath them, with plans to create something more life-like at a later time. One day, however, while out shopping—for what, I don’t remember—I ran across a clearance sale of Halloween merchandise.

I casually checked over what was for sale, because you never know what you might find. I was in equal parts repulsed and amused by some of the items available—until I saw them. The proverbial light bulb went off like a beam from a lighthouse in my head and I picked one up to examine it more closely.

It was a rubber replica of a severed forearm. Flexible and hollow, it was like a very thick glove. As soon as I saw it, I knew I had my answer. The trick was locating a set of both left and right hands. Like the world at large, there appeared to be a preponderance of right-handed, well hands.

I began to despair at being able to procure a matched set. My opinion wavered between whether I could accept just one somewhat normal-looking hand for now or to abandon the entire idea until I could find a better solution. The matter was decided when I discovered not one, but two left hands near the bottom of the bin. (Although I didn’t realize it at the time, I imagine that I must have made quite a ghoulish spectacle, a relatively decent-looking fellow intensely digging through a crate of artificial dismembered limbs. They always say that it’s the quiet and respectable ones . . .)

They worked perfectly. I trimmed off the ragged and red-painted end as to make them look a bit less macabre. Close up, there were obviously not real skin, but you had to look twice to notice. From a distance, I didn’t think anyone would be able to tell.

“They can pick up almost everything but the smallest objects,” I went on to Josh. “Things smaller than something like . . . regular Lego pieces it might have trouble with.”

I was rather pleased by that. Getting each of the fingers to move independently hadn’t been too much of a challenge, but I had run out of time before configuring them to be able to move in combination. It could point out a direction, but not yet make a Vulcan peace sign.