Sci-fi Novel - Underground City - Part 5

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Part 5

The wounds on Tulpar's legs were getting worse day by day. The chief physician of the great hospital had tried many ways to heal president Omay's husband's diabetes-related wounds. Oxygen therapy, ointments, and worm treatment didn't work. They had to cut off his left foot. The doctors would have to cut off his legs and even he could lose his life.

Omay looked at the deep wounds on her husband's legs, and a wave of disgust passed from her body. She felt guilty for having such a feeling and rushed her gaze into her husband's face. Because Tulpar was ashamed of his illness, he avoided looking Omay as much as possible. He was feeling more sluggish as the wounds on his legs grew.

Omay knew that his husband was not sleeping, but she didn't call his name. He would undoubtedly open his eyes when he feels ready. For a while, she watched the nurse, who was holding husband's wounds, while the chief physician appeared at the door of the room.

“It's not good,” Omay said.

The chief physician had a vigorous appearance despite his advanced age. “Our usual methods don't work, unfortunately. I commissioned one of our best physicians to investigate Turpar's illness. He's been working at the big library for a couple of weeks. He found in ancient Greek, Hittite and Babylonian texts that figwort was used for this kind of wounds. Based on this information, he also scanned the archives of our hospital. Before the tunnels were closed because of the plague, the merchant dwarves brought this plant to our city. Patients were fully recovered in the cases in which the plant was used. I've asked the seed depot and the medical greenhouses, unfortunately, we don't have it in our inventory.”

“Thank you for your interest. I ask you to continue your efforts in this regard. You have certainly heard of Tulpar's contribution to the development of direct current technology. He's one of the hero engineers we owe the electricity. And he has a golden heart, and I want to grow old with him.”

“You can be sure we're going to do everything we can,” said the chief physician, leaning slightly forward.

Omay left the hospital and boarded the electric car and moved to the presidential residence. By noon, she followed the preparations for a covert operation on the surface at the presidential office. Then she went into the observation room with Commander Amara. At the highest point of the plateau, where the city was built in, there was an iron tower erected to observe the surface of the city. The main display of the observation room reflected images from the tower. Upon the president's order, the prisoners of execution, remote controlled small cars, chimpanzees and turkeys from the zoo were brought to earth from four different locations. The aim was to measure the reaction of three-legged robots and their controlled mines. In addition to the main display, there were screens around the four exit points. There were a lot of officers in the observation room watching the image on each screen. They were waiting with pens on their hands to record everything that would happen.

Explosions occurred at intervals on the surface of the city. The reaction of robots was not as sudden as expected. It took ten minutes for all the explosions to happen and the dust on the surface to dissipate. Three prisoners were killed in the first minute on the surface, as expected, by the attack of mines. The mines attacked one of the chimpanzees, and the other began to run downhill, fearing explosions and disappeared into the grove. There was no attack on remote-controlled cars and turkeys. The turkeys, who were afraid of explosions around, waited still for a while, and then began to search for worms among the grass.

“I guess the robots are not as smart as we think,” Amara said.

President Omay was affected by the death of prisoners and chimpanzees. Although two of the prisoners were serial killers and one was a child rapist, they were human. The chimpanzee that was brought out of the zoo did not commit a crime that would require such an end. He was involved in the experiment because he walked on two feet like humans.

Omay got away from the thought and said, “It was a good idea to do such a test. We can put our troops in remote-controlled cars. They may not even need to be remotely controlled if there are soldiers in them.”

Amara ordered, “drive the cars over the three-legged robot in the middle.” Cars turned into scrap as a result of a coordinated fire by the five robots on the city before they approached the robot.

“We will take today's reactions as data, but could they have acted differently to mislead us?” asked Omay.

“Such a diversion requires preparation. I don't think they foresee the timing or the participants of our operation in advance,” Amara said.

In the morning of that day, a summary report on the results of the operation was sent to the members of the High Council. Hader was anxious when he read that remote-controlled cars were driven on one of the robots. He thought President Omay was playing with fire, and he feared the possibility of the city being overrun by robots. Omay, who did not listen to his warnings, had to endure the possible political consequences of the incident. He added the report to his archive to share it with the public in case the operation yields negative results.