The key didn’t work. Which was confusing because he’d made the thing himself, and it had worked the first few times he’d used it. The keyhole in the back of her head hadn’t changed. He was sure of that. But then, he was sure the key would still work, too, and it now it didn’t.
He went to where she was sitting, demurely, in her chair, her head slightly bowed. He parted her hair to reveal the keyhole, and he tried again to slot the key into it. It slid in partway, then jammed. No explanation.
“Why won’t you work, you damnedable thing?” he said.
He jiggled the key, trying to shake loose whatever was blocking it. Nothing. He pulled the key out again and examined it closely, brining it right up to his eyes for a closer look. The teeth on the key looked fine, but clearly they weren’t.
How was he supposed to program her thoughts if he couldn’t access her brain? This should have been a simple task, but it was turning out to be not so simple.
He went back to his worktable and pulled out a set of tools. He was, by no means, an expert keymaker. Maybe that was part of his problem now. The key that he had made didn’t work, and that could have been his fault.
He picked up one of the tools, a set of picks he sometimes used to open locks he no longer had keys for. He didn’t know if he could pick the lock on her head, but it was the only solution to the problem that he could think of. So he went to work.
First, he slipped the tension bar into the keyhole, then he added a pick. Slowly, he worked the mechanism, teasing the pins to an open position. He worked for ten minutes before all the pins were locked open. Then he turned the tools, releasing the lock mechanism, and her skull opened up, revealing the brain underneath.
“There,” he said, triumphantly. “Now to add in your programming.”
That was when she turned her head to look at him, shocking him. She was supposed to be a blank slate. No programming meant no commands to run. No commands meant she shouldn’t have been able to turn her head. What was going on??
Confused, he toggled her power button at the base of her neck. She sagged over, nearly falling out of the chair. Carefully, he positioned her upright once more, then he closed up her skull, and left her in hibernation mode.
He would come back to figure this all out later.
