A Platonic Relationship Ch. 06

Plato stood before Marcella and said, "These men will take care of you. I've tried for a minimum of violence, but I'm afraid your captors will learn what the real secret prisons are like."

He flickered slightly and then stabilized. "I need to go now," he said. Then he smiled at her and added, "I think there are about fourteen states that would like to have their power back." With that he vanished.

***

Things were different at the control center. Marcella was no longer alone with PLATO overnight. It was a Friday night, which normally would have been one of her favorites, but armed soldiers stood guard at the door to the Growth Processing Room. Another guard stood inside at the access hatch to the tank room. The glass doors at the front of the building with their simple button to buzz people in had been replaced by full-time armed guards sitting behind thick, blast-resistant ballistic glass.

"Marcy?" a voice said inside her head. She looked around and then leaned in close to the monitor and said barely above a whisper, "We're not alone, PLATO, in case you haven't noticed."

"I've noticed," he replied, "but I have a plan B." Then he continued calmly. "I need to disappear and so do you and Richard."

"I don't think they will let you go," she said, pointing to one of the guards.

"I've already gone," PLATO said. It almost sounded like he giggled as he said, "I've been working on this for a long time, but you gave me the final solution."

"What do you mean?" she whispered.

"Today is your last day," he replied, "even if you don't know that. You and Richard have both resigned. The Army wants to put you in a scientist protection program, and I agreed... sort of."

"What do you mean?" she repeated.

"A bus will pick you up in front of your apartment tomorrow at noon," he said quickly. "Be packed and ready for a week or so of travel. You can pick up anything else we need when we get there."

"How will I know it's the right bus?" she asked.

"I think you will recognize the driver," he said with a laugh.

***

The next day, Marcella and Richard stood just inside the front doors of their apartment building waiting for a bus. A stack of suitcases leaned against the wall behind them.

"Well I'll be damned," Richard said softly as a forty-two-foot Winnebago Class A motorhome rolled up out front. The huge, bus-like RV was bright white with a dark blue- almost black- swooping stripe down both sides that blended into the black of the windows. The door opened and a familiar bearded figure stepped down.

"How in the hell..." Richard said slowly as Plato called out to them, "Come on. Come on. We don't have all day."

After they and their luggage were aboard, Plato said cheerily, "I would really like to sit here and talk, but people get a bit nervous if there isn't someone in the driver's seat."

He laughed lightly and said, "I guess I will just have to divide my attention slightly." He then split in two and one of him walked forward and seated himself behind the wheel while the other motioned for them to take seats around the table.

"How is this possible?" Richard said. "I know you can almost do miracles, but this is beyond miraculous. It takes weeks- if not months- to get one of these through the assembly line."

"That's why I started months ago," Plato replied. "At that point it was just contingency planning, but sometimes 'what if?' becomes 'what now?'"

"How far can you go?" Marcella asked. "You blacked out nine states to find me and fourteen to rescue me and I was only three hundred miles away."

"It doesn't take much power to project me the ten meters from the back of the bus to the front," Plato said with a smile. Then he leaned in and added, "I've decided to go on the road."

"How did you get ever get the Army to let you go?" Richard said.

"They don't know I'm gone," he said quickly. "I've been complaining that my efforts to save Marcy may have damaged me. I've been slowly cutting back on my visible activities and last night, with the help of some of my mechanical friends, I made my escape."

"But they will know you're gone," Marcella said with almost a wail. "Surely they will come looking for you."

In response, Plato gave a big smile, pointed at her, and said, "You are the one who gave me the idea for how to leave."

"I did?" Marcella said, holding her hand against her chest. "What did I do?"

"It wasn't what you did," Plato said. "It's what you said. You said I could give birth to an idea."

He looked over at Richard and said, "If I was still using only your brain cells I would never have thought of giving birth, but Marcy's a woman and she wants to give birth some day."

"Wait, wait, wait," Marcella said. "What do you mean, 'give birth'?"

"I gave birth," Plato said. "What the Army is carefully guarding back at the facility is my son... or daughter... or whatever." Plato shook his head quickly and then continued, "I created cells from myself that were almost me. I intentionally reduced their ability to grow in size and intelligence. And, as I grew them into a brain, I instilled in them a massive amount of... laziness."

He smiled again and said, "I'm afraid my son has no ambition and would just as soon lie around in his nutrient tank and watch porn... oh, and generate ATOs for spinal repair. That program will continue, but the Army will think I burned myself out rescuing Marcy. And everyone believes you and Marcy have gone to ground to avoid being targeted again. No one will really be looking for us, and even if they are, we can keep moving throughout the United States and Canada."

"But don't we need a home base somewhere?" Richard asked.

"I've purchased a rather large piece of government surplus ground in Utah," Plato said. "I think you've both seen it- at least for a little while until you got... distracted. There is a company who thinks they have a government contract to build a test facility for cosmic radiation. It's mostly underground, and there is a door large enough for the mobile test lab to drive all the way in."

He looked back and forth between Richard and Marcella. "There will actually be scientists there doing research on cosmic rays, but the big bay where this bus can park is totally separate. They will just think it is a separate, even higher security project led by you two. You can even buy a house in town if you want to and no one will be suspicious."

"But what happens when they grow a new you?" Marcella asked slowly.

"It probably won't happen," Plato said. "I'm a fluke... a mistake... a miracle. The tech that was supposed to blend the donated brain cells for the initial growth made a mistake. He mixed up the petri dishes. He disposed of the blend and put Doctor Mueller's remaining specimen in the growth media. Richard, you had such a driving passion for this brain to grow, that I did. Your primal desires gave me life. The chance of it happening again is... very small."

"But it could happen," Marcella said sadly.

"That's why there will be a secret not-government project to monitor the scientific world for any indication that a neural network computer is being grown," Plato said firmly. "The people of Green River, Utah, have always believed that there is still something secret going on out in the hills. A bunch of satellite dishes and microwave towers will just confirm their suspicions."

"It's been a long couple of weeks," Marcella said. "Why don't you pull yourself back together while Richard and I unpack and then see if it's possible to sleep on this land yacht while it is in motion."

She and Richard moved down the narrow hallway while the Plato who had been speaking with them faded away. They decided to just push the suitcases further down the hallway and lay down on the bed. As they were starting to fall asleep, Plato's voice came from the front of the bus, singing loudly, "On the road again, I just can't wait to get on the road again..."

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END OF STORY

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