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Callister hadn’t encountered the story of Pinocchio until after he left Eureka. He had been reading through various classic children’s stories as a way to increase his ability to relate to the people around him (and as something to pass the time alone in his apartment). It was impossible not to have a visceral reaction to the story – if he actually had viscera, that is. But that was the point. He was never going to be a “real boy,” and there was no blue fairy to magically turn his circuits into veins and arteries.
The story also frustrated him though. He was not at all mischievous like Pinocchio, and he couldn’t understand why the boy would so easily run away from Geppetto. (If Callister had been a real boy, maybe he never would have been sent away.) And leaving home wasn’t indolence and games, it was taking small IT jobs that barely paid for his ratty apartment and doing nothing that might attract the attention of the D.O.D.
He missed his father, and Jo, and others back at Eureka desperately and felt like he was merely drifting aimlessly, not really making deeper connections because he was too afraid others might discover his secret. The highlight of his month was always the letters his father sent him every few weeks. (Ordinary mail with no return address, because his father was afraid of someone tracking him if they weren’t using any electronic means.)
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It took a while to notice that anything was wrong, that he was feeling laggy and run-down. Probably longer than it should have considering he didn’t get common colds or the flu like normal humans. But he had thought it was just depression making him feel slow and tired. It wasn’t until he had run his bi-monthly systems check that he discovered the problem wasn’t just in his mind. (He originally ran daily systems checks, then weekly, and now it was only every other week or so – it was so hard to feel motivated without his father there constantly monitoring his health. Maybe if he hadn’t been so apathetic, he might have identified the problem sooner.)
Callister didn’t even know where he could have picked up such a virus. His systems were far more sophisticated than the basic IT components with which he interacted at his job and he wouldn’t have thought anything compatible. He couldn’t even be sure when he’d picked it up, other than that he hadn’t noticed anything in his prior system scans.
At first, it was just a case of running some security protocols, rooting out the virus, and cleaning up his system, except… except nothing seemed to fix the problem and the symptoms were growing worse. (First it was just a slight slowness, as if his processing power had been reduced, but then it became noticeable delays or mistakes in relaying signals to his speech processors or to his movement protocols. What would be next? Callister was terrified.)
If he were a normal human boy, none of this would be happening to him. Of course, he never had to suffer run-of-the-mill colds and viruses the way normal humans did, and there were plenty of debilitating diseases that could strike just as suddenly and effectively. But if he were a real boy, this computer virus wouldn’t be affecting him now. More importantly, if he were human, he would have been able to stay in Eureka where there were medical facilities to treat any human diseases and his friends and father would be there to help him.
He thought he had known what fear was before, when his creator – his father – had told him they needed to burn down their lab, that Callister needed to leave Eureka for his own safety. That was nothing compared to this – the fear of dying, of ceasing to exist.
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The decision to return to Eureka was obvious. Nothing Callister had done had been able to fix anything or slow down the ravages of the virus, but his father had created him and surely he would be able to save him. And if…if he wasn’t, well, then Callister owed it to him to make sure that his body wasn’t left to be found by some unsuspecting coroner, thereby destroying the cover-up his father had so painstakingly crafted.
(Underneath those reasons was a deeper one though; if he did die, he didn’t want to be alone when it happened.)
Callister knew his father was back in Eureka now and living in his former house, which meant he had his exact address to find him. If he’d been able afford it, Callister might have obtained a car to drive directly to his house with less chance of being seen by others. Unfortunately, he had to take the bus instead, and walk right through the middle of downtown. He had called Father from a pay phone at the bus stop but had to walk to the lab to meet him.
This did afford him the chance to see Jo again – when he’d seen her through the window in Café Diem, he couldn’t resist the detour to go in and greet her. On the other hand, walking through town had brought him to the notice of the new sheriff who was clearly already suspicious of him. His suspicion was couched a lot nicer than Sheriff Cobb’s had been at the end, but Callister was still wary. His father had mentioned Sheriff Carter a few times in his recent letters – mainly about how he was always sticking his nose into things, even if he did end up somehow providing helpful solutions.
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It seemed his father had been right about Sheriff Carter’s tendencies. His father was replacing the damaged synthetic skin on Callister’s arm when the new sheriff burst into the lab, having pieced together several clues from Sheriff Cobb’s case reports. He’d also clearly dropped the nice act from before, judging by the gun in his hand.
The sheriff wasn’t just there for the old lab fire, however. Apparently, all the electrical surges and technology on the fritz was being caused by Callister spreading his virus into the open network of Eureka. He swallowed. This isn’t what he’d wanted to happen at all. While his father and Sheriff Carter continued to snap at each other, he decided to sneak out. If he was causing trouble and spreading his virus, maybe it would be better if he just left.
Unfortunately, the sheriff caught him before he made it to the side door. While Callister reluctantly sat back down near his father, the sheriff surprisingly put his gun away and pulled out his own chair to sit with them. Callister looked over to his father to see if he was sporting the same baffled look that Callister himself probably wore when the sheriff started asking a different line of questions. Was this an interrogation?
Sheriff Carter did not know that much about computers, let alone artificial intelligence systems. That was clear from his questions and comments, saying things such as: “Okay, I don’t want to be insensitive, but can’t you turn off your connection to the intranet, or whatever? I mean, surely you haven’t had WiFi everywhere you’ve been outside of Eureka, so you don’t, like, need it to survive or anything, right?”
Callister let his father answer all the sheriff’s questions, still shocked that it seemed like he might possibly be trying to help them. To save him.
The sheriff was asking about backups now, as if Callister could be rebooted as easily as one of the PCs he had fixed in his IT jobs. If only it were that simple, he’d have done that right away with no need to return to Eureka for help.
“Any backup we tried to make would still be infected with the virus,” his father explained. The snarky tone his father was using felt like a thin veneer to cover up the pain in his eyes. (Maybe Callister shouldn’t have come back. Not only did he cause problems in town, he was hurting his father.)
“Right, but can you restore to a previous backup from before you were infected?” The sheriff looked between them.
Callister finally spoke up to answer, “I haven’t had the equipment to do a proper backup since I first left Eureka.” It had been a difficult change when he left Eureka, to lose that constant connection to the intranet and to the accompanying vast backup servers. The rise of WiFi hotspots in recent years had brought some of that feeling back, but it wasn’t the same.
Sheriff Carter was still speaking though. “…Which would mean losing all your memories of the last several years. Right, maybe we’ll leave that for Plan D.” The sheriff sighed and scrubbed a hand against his forehead as if to rub new ideas out of his brain, while Callister blinked in shock.
It was true that his father might still have his old backups from before Callister left secured somewhere. (Unless those too were destroyed in the fire.) Callister didn’t want to lose his memories of the last several years, but it would be better than dying. And considering he and his father didn’t even have a workable Plan A twenty minutes ago, having any plan was a relief, even if it was a sub-optimal one.
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That spark of hope was infectious, and Callister could see it had spread to his father as well. They hadn’t been able to come up with a preferable Plan A (or B or C) yet, but Sheriff Carter was surprisingly helpful in the way he forced them to reexamine their options as they broke down complex programming into simple analogies. (Maybe there had been a note of grudging respect after all in those letters from his father complaining about this man.)
When the sheriff finally stepped outside for a second, Callister took the opportunity to ask his father if they could really trust Sheriff Carter with their secret. If he would turn Callister over to the D.O.D. as Sheriff Cobb would have done, even if Carter actually helped to save him first.
“I don’t know, but I promise to do what ever is necessary to keep you safe.” His father repeated the vow he’d made back on the day of the lab fire.
Sheriff Carter returned quickly, once again massaging his forehead as he put away his phone with his other hand. “Sorry, I needed to call my daughter. We got into a big fight this morning, but watching the two of you together has really put things in perspective.” He shot a sympathetic look at Father, “I don’t think I would be nearly this calm if my kid came back with a debilitating disease.”
Callister swore his respiratory system failed momentarily. He had never actually told his father that he thought of him as such, but the sheriff said it as if it was perfectly natural, as if it was obvious that a creation and their creator would be the same as any child and parent.
Maybe the sheriff would be willing to help protect him after all – assuming he survived to need that protection. At the very least, his father would have someone who knew the truth should the worst happen.
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Callister woke up to his creator gazing down at him, accompanied by a stranger dressed in the sheriff’s uniform. The lab around them looked…odd. Several pieces of the familiar equipment were missing, and parts of the lab were draped in plastic. It made it look like the lab had been deserted for an extended period of time. Had he been put to sleep? He thought Dr. Stark had been pleased with Callister’s progress, with the friendships and relationships he’d formed in town.
(He had even, deep within his processes where no one else could see, begun to think of his creator as his father. It was nice to pretend that he could have a familial relationship as well as his new friendships. Did his creator/father not want him anymore? Was it because of that worry he’d begun to see on Dr. Stark’s face? His creator had mentioned Callister might have to leave Eureka; he hadn’t said anything about being deactivated.)
His gaze snapped back to the unfamiliar sheriff. He remembered now that it had been Sheriff Cobb snooping around that had set off his father’ worries. This sheriff was smiling though. “I’m glad to see you looking better. I’ll let your dad catch you up on what happened.”
…His dad? The sheriff stepped away, and it was just Dr. Stark – with tears in his eyes, and gripping Callister’s hand tighter than was probably comfortable for a human hand.
The story that unfolded was incredible. It was hard to believe that Callister had really lost all the data for several years’ worth of life, or that he’d spent almost all of that time outside of Eureka. He couldn’t even imagine what that must have been like. The good news was that the rebooting plan had worked; erasing Callister’s memories had also erased the virus that had apparently been killing him.
(No, the real good news was that his father had openly addressed Callister as “my son.”)
Timidly, Callister asked if he had to leave town again. It was an intimidating thought – he was reeling enough from the news of his lost memories; he couldn’t imagine having to leave all his friends (and his father!). He wondered how he’d coped the first time around, in the life he no longer remembered.
Surprisingly, it was the sheriff – now introduced as Sheriff Carter – who rambled a number of options. “First of all, neither Jo nor I are going to hound you about the lab fire that was the original reason you supposedly left. I know you weren’t responsible, and as far as I’m concerned it was an accident.” The sheriff glanced at Dr. Stark and away.
“Now, if you do want to stick around, you need to decide whether you want to tell people about losing your memory. You’ve mostly lost all your time outside Eureka, so you could just not talk about your travels and not tell anybody. Otherwise, you could say you had some sort of disease or something that was affecting your memory – but then I’m sure there’s probably an Alzheimer’s guy who would maybe start hounding you.” The sheriff rolled his eyes; he had a surprisingly expressive face. “Last choice, you could tell everyone the truth. I’m not sure everyone would accept you, but I think you might be pleasantly surprised. Also, whatever you decide, you should come over and meet Sarah.”
“Is that your …daughter?” Callister asked with some confusion. He thought he liked this new sheriff much more than Sheriff Cobb, but he was also still feeling thoroughly overwhelmed right now.
“Oh, no, Zoe’s my daughter. S.A.R.A.H.’s my house.”
His father thankfully clarified, “S.A.R.A.H. is A.I.; Fargo apparently decided to dig up my old research while I was in DC, and repurposed B.R.A.D. into a smart house. Sheriff Carter and his daughter live there and seem to consider her one of the family.” The sheriff nodded genially.
(Really?! Callister wasn’t the only A.I. in Eureka anymore? It sounded as if Sarah might not have a body like himself, but she did have a family. Just like Callister had a family now.)
He glanced back at his father who was arguing with Sheriff Carter about Sarah’s ability to keep secrets from Fargo, and Fargo’s ability to keep secrets from the town, balanced by the likelihood that Fargo would almost certainly be a huge advocate for Callister’s personhood.
Callister still wasn’t sure what was going to happen when he walked out those doors, but he was healthy and not dying, and he had his father(!) at his side. If he was lucky, he’d have Jo and some of his other friends by his side as well – and maybe the new sheriff and Sarah could become friends too. Maybe this was his chance, like a wish made upon a star, to live the life he’d probably dreamed about during those forgotten years of loneliness. And if was really lucky, the reality of his new life might prove even better than those lost dreams.