Noccio

NOCCIO

By

Veronica Chase

© copyright February 2004, Veronica Chase
Cover art by Eliza Black, © copyright February 2004

ISBN 978-1-60394-598-1

New Concepts Publishing
5202 Humphreys Road
Lake Park, GA 31636
www.newconceptspublishing.com

This is a work of fiction. All characters, events, and places are of the author’s imagination and not to be confused with fact. Any resemblance to living persons or events is merely coincidence.

B. Lou Ferry stepped back and studied his creation thoughtfully. After some moments, he breathed a deep sigh of contentment. "Perfection," he announced. "Absolute perfection."

Stepping around behind his creation, he pressed the hidden activation button that looked like a small mole near his spine. Immediately, Noccio began to breathe, as if he were truly alive.

Ferry frowned at that thought, realizing that he wasn’t absolute perfection if he wasn’t a real man. Moving around in front of Noccio once more, he looked up at him. Noccio instantly responded by looking back.

"How do you feel?" Ferry asked him.

Noccio’s expression remained as it was. Instead of frowning in thoughtfulness, he stared blankly ahead. Finally, he asked without inflection, "Feel?"

Ferry frowned. "You’re a perfect marriage of biological and electronic mechanical technology. You’re more human than robot … at least physically. I’ve even programmed artificial intelligence into you … and yet you don’t understand what I mean when I ask how you feel? Can you give me the definition of feel?"

"Feel. To perceive by the touch. To handle. To be sensitive to. To experience emotionally. To have an intuitive awareness of. To be moved emotionally," the cyborg, Noccio recited mechanically.

Ferry gripped his hair agitatedly. "There is no emotion in you!"

Noccio turned and looked at him. Lifting his hands, he grasped the hair on either side of his head.

Ferry stared at him a long moment, and then angrily stamped his foot. "It isn’t enough to mimic emotion. You should feel it."

Noccio merely stared at him. "I do not find this in my programming."

Ferry sighed deeply and began to pace, muttering to himself. He might as well be a garbage can. "After all the time I’ve spent working on him. After all the great care. He’s nothing at all but a biological machine. I don’t understand it. I just don’t understand it."

Noccio watched him as he paced back and forth. "You are dissatisfied with my performance?"

"I feel like weeping at your performance," Ferry cried, pulling his hair again. "Don’t you wish to be human? To be a man and not a machine?"

Again, Noccio merely stared at him for several moments. Finally, with every appearance of a great deal of effort, he frowned. "Yes," he said.

Ferry stopped abruptly, staring at his creation. Ever so faintly, a spark of hope flickered. "You felt that?"

Noccio managed another frown. It seemed to come easier to him this time. "I believe it is something I wish."

This time, it was Ferry who stared at Noccio for long moments. Slowly, a smile curled his lips. "You wish … You must learn it. That’s the problem."

"I do not understand," Noccio said.