The Inevitable: A Novel - Softcover

Hope, Daniel

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0998825778 ISBN 13: 9780998825779

Publisher: Hawthorne Books, 2023

Synopsis

The Inevitable, a novel by Daniel Hope, features a charismatic robot grappling with a very human conundrum, the meaning of life and death. Tuck is the last bot in the universe after surviving the Bot Riots on Earth by escaping into space. He is grieving the loss of his family and forced to wander between planets looking for parts of himself that need replacement in order to stay functional, risking exposure even as collectors are hunting him. He alleviates his loneliness by adopting an abandoned AI integrated into a spaceship and naming it David after the boy he took care of on Earth. The two meet Maze, a genetically modified, escaped lab experiment who, like Tuck, has super-human speed and strength. Maze serves as first mate on a ship owned by a billionaire, who offers Tuck the parts he needs in exchange for assistance with her corporate raid against her main rival. Tuck finds renewed purpose in his life through Maze and quickly becomes devoted to her. Together they must survive in a world where they are at once misfits and precious commodities. The Inevitable examines the value of life in a technologically advanced society, the definition of humanity, and the complex relationships that arise in the gray area between AIs and humans.

About this title

About the Author

DANIEL HOPE likes writing and science fiction, so it should be no surprise that he combines them. By day, he works with user experience designers to make apps easier to understand. His muted pessimism has been generously characterized as the Voice of Reason by the design team. He lives in Colorado with his family. His nerdy interests have been generously characterized as Super Lame by his kids.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

The Inevitable, by Daniel Hope with an Introduction by Lidia Yuknavitch

Pub: October 2, 2023

374 pages

Excerpt

 

 

 

Chapter 1

 

Tuck hated that humans could always hear him coming. With every step, his left knee let out a shrill squeak of metal scraping on metal, and his right ankle cracked loud enough to echo down the dirty back alleys. His corroded metal foot clomped down on the metal walkway running alongside one of the many muddy side streets of New San Francisco, the rotting industrial center on the planet Magnus. The other foot, in no better condition, swung unsteadily by to plop down ahead of the first. With every step, what was left of the synthaskin that once sheathed the feet crumbled and flaked off. The pattern of footfalls continued, an inconsistent thump on the rickety walkway creating a syncopated beat with the squeaking and creaking joints connected to the feet.

Lurching along above the feet, on top of a body equally broken and tattered, Tuck’s head remained fixed straight ahead, eyes scanning the surroundings in frequencies throughout the electromagnetic spectrum. His original designation was TUC-67/c, but no one had called him that in over 150 years.

Tuck detected movement ahead of him, where an alley connected with the walkway he was on. Two men in stained and mismatched clothes jumped out, one brandishing a length of metal and the other holding an old pistol in desperate need of repair and, as Tuck’s sensors instantly detected, ammunition.

“Hey there, where’re ya headed?” one of them said.

Tuck would have given them one of his favorite looks, one he learned from a human friend long ago, but it involved raising one eyebrow. He had lost his right eyebrow several years back to a fungus that eats artificial hair, and the other eyebrow had grown so thin over the years that he feared raising a disdaining brow wouldn’t have much effect. Instead, Tuck settled for another classic human expression. He rolled his eyes.

“I don’t have much of value for you,” Tuck said. “Please, let me pass.”

“Oh, I don’t think so,” the other man said with a gap-toothed smile. “You look like you mightbe worth something down at the salvage yards. You’re comin’ with us, Rusty.”

“Yeah,” the first man said, “the drones are gonna have fun figgering out how to tear you apart. C’mon.” Both men reached for Tuck.

 “Wait,” Tuck said, “I do have something for you.”

Before Tuck’s attackers could grab his arms, one was suddenly extended toward them with a BlastLogic 6700 just centimeters from their noses. A slight whine, increasing in pitch, told them this blaster was functional, unlike theirs. Their eyes grew large, and they ducked involuntarily, throwing their hands up as ineffectual shields. “Whoa! Hey! What are you doing? Put that away!”

“I’ve dealt with goons much more menacing than you two,” Tuck said, trying to keep the damaged joints in his arm steady. “You wouldn’t believe how many people think they can make money off me, but invariably they forget that I can be quite deadly.”

Tuck squeezed the trigger and let a bright red bolt fly, deliberately singeing the greasy hair of the man on his right. Both men yelped and scampered back into the alley. Tuck calmly replaced the pistol in a special holster inside his abdomen. People seldom thought Tuck would be carrying weapons inside his body, and this afforded him an element of surprise when he needed it most.

It wasn’t the only surprising thing about him. He was a remnant, a relic of a different time, when synthaskin was as common as human skin in some of the more affluent areas of the galaxy. On some parts of Earth, robotic analogs of humans had been so numerous they outnumbered the very humans they were built to serve. Ever since the Bot Riots, his kind were increasingly scarce, and not just on Magnus. After the riots, bots quickly disappeared from stores, then from homes and businesses, and then finally from the enormous dumps where drones hovered over the massive heaps, quietly and efficiently sorting trash. Now Tuck was the last functioning bot in the galaxy.

People preferred drones because they were more predictable. They weren’t self-aware, they couldn’t alter their own programming, and they didn’t simulate emotions. After the trauma of the riots, humans didn’t want to worry about what their devices were feeling[.

Chapter 2

Amelia sat at a small café inside New San Francisco’s spaceport, shaking her head. She had ordered a drink over ten minutes earlier, and it still hadn’t arrived. She expected quick reactions and loyal service if her money was involved, no matter how small the transaction.

She shifted uncomfortably on the metal chair she sat on, hoping nothing was rubbing off on the skirt of her white suit. New San Francisco wasn’t the type of place she normally liked to visit. She wondered how anyone stayed clean in this place. Gazing around the plaza next to the café, she noticed one of the large glowing billboards on the side of a building was for Galactic Enterprises, and she fought the urge to grit her teeth. At the speed of thought, she used her Link to find the company that owned the billboard. A Link was a special embedded device that delivered information directly to her optical nerve. When in use, it appeared as if an interface floated  in front of the user, and they could view and interact with documents, videos, businesses, and just about anything else. Amelia used it to buy out the billboard looming over her and replace Galactic Enterprise’s advertisement with one for a brand of diarrhea medicine.

 Satisfied with her purchase, Amelia pulled up some spreadsheets and reports on her Link. There was always something to be done.

A notification pinged her aural nerves, making it seem like a gentle chime went off by her right ear. With a thought, she accessed the notification, and the face of her second-in-command, Maze, appeared before her. Maze was all business, both in looks and demeanor, just as Amelia liked it.

“Veld sent us a message. The bot has arrived.”

“Thank you, Maze.”

“It’s not too late to contact the bot directly,” Maze said. Her voice conveyed her irritation more than her face did. “We shouldn’t rely on Dronic’s lackey. We don’t know how trustworthy he is, and we can mitigate the risk by skipping over Dronic entirely.”

“Don’t worry about Veld,” Amelia said softly, overlaying a report on the video feed and scanning it while she spoke. “He’ll get exactly what he wants if he does what we want, and he seems quite ambitious. He won’t let us down.”

“It seems so inefficient.”

“We’re testing for the results we need without putting ourselves or our assets in danger. I want to see the bot make it through this one on his own. If he doesn’t make it, then he wouldn’t be useful to us anyway. Seems pretty efficient to me.”

“Dronic will try to take the bot for himself.”

“Of course he will. But if the bot is as good as everyone says he is, then he’ll be okay.”

“Okay, perhaps, but likely damaged.”

Amelia closed the report and smiled at Maze. “Which will make him even more desperate. Just the way we want him.” She rose from her chair, brushing at her skirt, and then stood up straight and smoothed her jacket. “Keep me apprised of his progress. I’m headed out to the landing field.”

“Acknowledged.”

As Amelia walked out of the café, she noticed the waiter arriving with her drink. With a shake of her head, she used her Link to put the waiter’s name and face in her database, carefully cataloged in a list of people she forbade her associates to hire in the future.

 

Edition details

• Publisher: Hawthorne Books
• Publication date: 2023
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0998825778
• ISBN 13: 9780998825779
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 378