The Professor was sipping his morning tea and reading the news on his computer screen.

I was eating a doughnut and wondering what we were going to do now. We had gotten rid of the malicious spirits that were responsible for New Life Labs creating a zombie army. I assumed now New Life would scale back their zombie production lines since they were no longer needed to supply bodies for an army.

I guessed there would still be a market for the remote-control zombie servants which were what originally got New Life into the business of making zombies. New Life created these so-called zombies by reviving cryopreserved bodies of critically ill patients. Those bodies were frozen in the hope of being thawed out in a future where a cure might exist for their illness. Unfortunately, although cures existed, after thousands of years of dormancy, these body's original brains no longer functioned on a conscious level. They were healthy bodies with no higher-level brain functions. New Life would implant receivers in these zombies' brains. The bodies then basically became robots under the control of New Life. Bodies that were dead, now had new life. Hence the company's name and why these robots were called zombies.

The Professor interrupted my thoughts, "There has been a murder at New Life Labs. It appears one of the zombies threw Professor Gunderson, the head of New Life's Labs out a tenth-floor window."

"How could that happen? We got rid of the malicious spirits thar were possessing the zombies. Aren't all the zombies now controlled by New Life?"

"I thought so. We should go find out." The Professor put on his Sherlock Holmes Deerstalker hat and said, "Let's go solve a murder."

At the lab, we ran into Lana, the company's director who had helped us get rid of the spirits. She got us into the lab and convinced Detective Forker to let us help with the investigation.

"There's not much to investigate. It is obvious the damn zombie did it," The detective who looked a lot like the twenty-first century Will Smith tilted his head towards the zombie in cuffs. The detective was clearly anti-zombie and had pretty much made up his mind that the Zombie was guilty. The Professor was not convinced.

"I woo-uld not hurt the doc-tor," The zombie stuttered. The stuttering indicated the zombie had some residual higher level brain functions and was speaking for himself. When zombies spoke under the control of their implants, they did not stutter.

"Isn't it possible someone used the remote-control receiver in the zombie's brain to command the zombie to kill Gunderson?" The Professor asked. "It is not like these zombies have free will."

"The receivers use a secure encrypted link," Lana explained.

"Who oversees the people controlling the zombies?" the detective asked.

Lana answered, "There are no people controlling the zombies. It is all done by Aida our artificial intelligence on our secure centrally located mainframe. I'm pretty sure it is unreachable and unhackable."

"Well, that clinches it for me," the detective said turning to the zombie to lead him away. And that move clinched it for the zombie who made a run for it. Yep, this zombie was clearly able to act beyond the control of his implant. Who would have thought a handcuffed zombie could move so fast.

They didn't catch the zombie, although he did eventually catch us. He had followed us back to the time machine and my heart stopped when he appeared out of the shadows pleading, "H-h-eelp meee." I was terrified.

The Professor whose curiosity was always his highest priority asked, "How are you able to function without being commanded by the AI?"

Despite the zombie's stuttering, The Professor was able to determine that this zombie still had some conscious control from his old self. The time he spent in the cryopod had not completely destroyed his higher mental functions. However, they were severely damaged.

The Professor took the zombie to the time machine's operating room and surgically removed the receiver from the zombie's brain. Who would have thought the Professor could do brain surgery?

While the zombie was recovering from the anesthetic I asked The Professor, "What are you going to do with a zombie with half a conscious brain and no controls?"

He shrugged and asked me, "What would you suggest?"

I had an answer, but even I was not happy with it. I had seen this whole story before. It was the movie "I, Robot." I knew where things were headed. The AI was the bad guy and everyone who defended it was a villain. Still, this was the real world, and that AI was critical to controlling the masses of zombies that still existed. We couldn't destroy it and throw the world into chaos just to protect a semi functional human.

"Professor, I hate to be the villain, but I think we should turn him over to the authorities. After all, he did have part of his own free will when he threw Gunderson out the window."

"So, we let Sonny take the fall for this murder?" The Professor asked me with a disapproving look. He had decided to name the zombie Sonny. Apparently, he'd seen my favorite movie too.

It was my turn to shrug. "The alternative is to try and put the blame on the AI. At best that would be difficult, and we'd probably not succeed. At worst we do succeed, and they shut the AI down and the world is plunged into chaos with hordes of uncontrolled zombies roaming the planet.

When he awakened from the anesthetic, we explained the situation to Sonny. I'm not sure his semi-functional brain grasped it all, but it was clear that he was remorseful for what he had done to Dr. Gunderson. He was grateful to The Professor for removing the receiver that prevented him from acting of his own free will. Having your will constantly thwarted is apparently very stressful and possibly the reason Sonny attacked Gunderson.

We turned Sonny over to Detective Forker. Full of remorse and despair, Sonny threw himself out the same window he had thrown Gunderson. So, unlike the movie, there would be no happy ending to this story.