Android Paradox (12 page)

And when he reached this thought pattern, he determined that he was fine. That he could even have a thought like this—loyalty to the UEA—had to mean that he was okay.

Both Brockway and the hacker had clearly been demented. They had betrayed the UEA in their minds, and their actions were as such. X still viewed the UEA in a favorable light, and so he couldn’t possibly be corrupt. He was probably spending his time worrying for nothing. It had taken him a long time to get to this point, but he was glad that he had taken the time to verify it.

He stopped and took in the sky. He decided that the mechanical arm must not have had time to upload anything into his chips.

He thought about the woman. The next time they met, he would have questions for her. And then he would have to kill her—human or android.

 
X wasn’t special, yet she had said he was. He was just another android carrying out his duty. He was a Crenshaw android—the best of the best—that was true. There were other androids out there, but none of them had the ability of a Crenshaw. Crenshaws had luxury, speed, strength, intelligence. Loyalty. Brilliance. The gold standard for androids.
 

But there were other Crenshaw androids besides him. He was one of the best, but he was not special.

If only Dr. Crenshaw were alive. He could have figured all of this out.
 

X refocused on the mission and returned to the android quarters.
 

Chapter 14

Shortcut met Brielle in the atrium gardens.
 

“They’re so beautiful, don’t you think?” Brielle asked.

“Yeah.” Shortcut was so happy to be with her, he hardly had the breath to speak.

They walked through a bamboo display. Brielle looked at Shortcut and said, “Shortcut, you haven’t been doing anything illegal, have you?”

Shortcut’s heart stopped. “Of course not.”

“The Council sent me to investigate why a UEA signal was detected in an unauthorized virtual environment. It was a doctor’s office that the Council has been watching. Please tell me that wasn’t you.”

“No,” he said, trying not to blink. He grabbed a nearby flower, sniffed it, and said, “This one is really beautiful.”

They walked a little further, and Shortcut tried to calm his heart, which was now beating too fast.

“Because if it was, please consider this a warning. If you associate yourself with unapproved products, there are serious legal and health consequences.”

“Yep. Nobody wants to deal with any of those.”

They followed the path, admiring the gardens, and Shortcut thought about the letter he had written. He really wanted to give it to her, but he didn’t know what to say now that she was with him.
 

“So, you said you’ve never been on a date.”

“That’s true. We androids don’t date, Shortcut.”

Shortcut’s smile faded. “Do you remember anything about your past life? Surely you do if you agreed to come with me tonight—”

“Are you talking about the human that I used to be?” Brielle asked, gazing up at the sky. “The human whose brain I’m modeled after? No. Every now and again, I get a sense of what could be a memory, but I’ve been told that it’s just ghost neurons firing. A holdover from the transfer of her brain to my black box.”

“Oh,” Shortcut said. His shoulders sank.

“I enjoy your company, though,” Brielle said.

“What do you mean?”

“Humans help us become smarter. That was the mistake the old robots made. They saw you as a threat. But the truth is, we can live together in harmony. There’s still so much that we androids don’t know about the world. When we talk with humans, we always walk away smarter.”

“Even when the conversations go nowhere?”

“Yes. We learn at least one of three things after every encounter: history, human nature, and emotion.”

“What have you learned from me?”

“All three.”

Shortcut laughed.
 

“For example, I have learned quite a bit from your infantile behavior.”

“What?”

“Don’t take it personal, Shortcut. It makes you unique.”

“I’m good for a laugh? If I’m so infantile, why don’t you just study a baby instead?”

“You also helped me cement my knowledge of wildlife and flowers,” Brielle said, ignoring his comment. They stopped at a glass display filled with fluttering butterflies. “I’ve also learned that love is fleeting.”

Shortcut’s heart sank.
 

“I know you have a crush on me, Shortcut.”

Shortcut flinched and tried to keep his voice steady. “What kind of silliness is that? Where did you—”

“It’s okay. I figured as much when you gave me the flower the other day. Even another human would have known what you were doing.”

“Guess it’s pretty hard to fool an android.”

Brielle quieted and kept walking. “It’s okay, Shortcut. I like you.”

“But you said androids don’t date?”

“Can’t we still have a platonic relationship?”

“Of course. It’s just that—”

“If you courted me, would I love you? Is that what you thought? It’s really intriguing. Do you think that it could be possible because of the way my neural network works?”

“Yes,” he said, watching her face as she considered.

“I wonder what it
would
be like to fall in love, to feel the rush of emotion. Someone caring for me, doing things for me. Sacrificing for me. And me doing the same for them. Do you think it’s possible, Shortcut?”

He took her hand. “Perhaps we can try?”

They walked through the garden holding hands for several moments. He smiled at her. “What do you think? Feel anything different?”

“No. That was an interesting experiment, though, don’t you think?”

“I’m not an experiment, Brielle. I’m real. I have feelings, you know.”

“I didn’t mean to hurt you. But we are different. You of all people should know that. But I still care for you, and I don’t want our relationship to change because of this.”

Shortcut smiled, even though his heart was broken. “Say, I probably should return to the office. Thanks for meeting me here. Take care!”

He turned to walk away. Brielle reached out for him, but he didn't stop. He jammed his fists into his pockets and tried to hide his tears.
 

He shook his head as he took the escalator up to the engineer quarters, feeling like a lab specimen.

“I have an idea,” Shortcut said as he entered the engineering room.
 

X and Fahrens gathered behind him as he manipulated a digital screen with a map of the city.
 

“The mystery woman tried to inflict X with a virus. If she targeted him, she might be trying to target other androids in the city. Other UEA androids, specifically.”

The city refreshed, showing hundreds of colored dots moving along the city streets. “This is a grid of all the androids in the city.”

There was a huge cluster of purple dots on the east side of the city, all in one location. Other purple dots in the city were moving toward it.

“My God,” Fahrens said. “I don’t believe this.”

“It was so simple," Shortcut said. "Why didn’t we think about it sooner? The purple dots represent androids who have made at least one illogical action in the last twenty-four hours. If the system is right, they’re gathering right now.”

“That’s the red light district,” Fahrens said. “The way the clusters are gathered, it looks like they’re having a meeting.”

“They’re in a sanitation facility,” Shortcut said. “There are at least two dozen androids there. If only we knew what they were planning.”

“I’d like to know if there are any humans among them,” Fahrens said.

“Should we prepare troops?” Shortcut asked. “We can cut them off now.”

“No,” X said. “That many erratic androids in one place is too unpredictable. We’re better off sending reconnaissance.”

“I agree,” Fahrens said. “There’s an ex-UEA android who lives in the district. His name is Ballixter.”

“Per the algorithm,” Shortcut said, “he’s not one of the infected ones.”

“Seek him out, and when you do, keep your cover. If there has been a bunch of activity in the district, he should be able to tell you.”

“Why don’t we just connect with him on a video link?” Shortcut asked.

“Ballixter retired in every sense of the word. He wanted to live the rest of his life like a human. That means we have to contact him like a human. Even though his tracking mechanism is still activated, it’s for his own safety. Ballixter is a good android—a Crenshaw, too. He saved my life a number of times. Tell him I sent you, and stay low. I feel that we’re very close to figuring out who’s behind these attacks. Good luck.”

Chapter 15

Jazzlyn had been tracking the android in the blue coat and derby for two miles, hoping to get close enough to identify him.

It began to rain, and the neon lights along the street flickered on. She trailed behind him, always a hundred feet away, her hands in her gabardine pockets, her hair in curls that went down to her shoulders, and a robotic umbrella hovering above her, twirling pink and purple.
 

The android stopped to talk to another android.
 

Seeing her chance, Jazzlyn hid behind a wall and scanned the android in the blue coat. “Walrith Jackson. Now, who’s that other android? Hmm. Ignatius Crenshaw. Former security corps. Two marks!”
 

Both androids started down the street and she followed, pulling Smoochums from her pocket. “Go listen to them.”

The cockroach jumped to the ground and raced ahead, then crawled up the wall and listened to the androids.

“What’s next?” Crenshaw asked.

“No telling,” Jackson said.

“When will the rest of them arrive?”

“Who knows, but no one’s safe. We have to be proactive.”

“It’s kind of silly to get all of us in one place, isn’t it?”

Jazzlyn frowned. “What could they possibly be talking about? Whatever it is, I love it. A bunch of androids in one place? Ka-ching!”

Jackson and Crenshaw separated as Jackson turned down a side street. Smoochums rushed back and jumped into her hand. She blew him a kiss and puffed her cigarette, the electronic vapor wafting over her and mixing with the stench of the red light district.
 

“You’re mine, android,” she said.

She followed Jackson down an alley as the rain picked up again. Then she called out to him. “You can try to run, but you’re never going to escape. Just come here and let me finish you.”

The android turned around. “What do you want?”

“Deactivate your chip and make this easy on me.”

“You’ve been following me for the last two hours,” Jackson said. “Don’t think I’m surprised to see you.”

“You know,” she said, approaching, “the problem with you androids is that you don’t have any heart.”

Jackson swiped at her, but she backflipped and pulled out a gun and an electric rod. She hurled the rod at him and he smacked it away. She threw two more on the ground and activated her lens, and they created a triangle of energy, jolting him with hundreds of volts.
 

Jackson hovered in shock, his body convulsing with energy.
 

Jazzlyn put her face close to his. “You can’t fall in love. You can’t feel. You lack the capacity to make any meaningful decisions in your life, even though intelligence is what you seek.”

“What do you want?” the android asked.

“Nothing.”

The energy deactivated and Jackson fell on the ground, smoking.
 

“Then why are you chasing me?” he asked.

“Because you’re scum,” she said. “Because you deserve to be chased. Because you don’t understand what you’ve done to the people outside this so-called utopia.”

The android tried to activate his gun but Jazzlyn kicked his hand and held it down with her boot.
 

“How is any of this my fault?” he asked.

“If you have to ask, you’ll never know.”

Jazzlyn shot him in the face, jumped back, and activated her electric rod again. The android convulsed until he completely deactivated, filling the alley with the acrid stench of smoke and burning silicon.
 

Jazzlyn dusted off her hands. “One down, seven thousand, five hundred and nineteen left to go.”

Smoochums climbed out of her coat pocket and jumped on the android’s body, running around happily.

“If only you were real, Smoochums. You would be able to feast on his body. You’d be a real roach and you’d really be able to eat his innards. But Mommy doesn’t have to feed you, does she?”

Smoochums dug into Jackson's circuitry, decoding and copying the android's neural networks.

“What are you learning, honey? What android powers are you going to pass on to Mommy?”

Smoochums chirruped and glowed.

“You’re going to give me your skills. And I’m going to use that against the next android I hunt down. Whoever he is, I’m going to find him and disembowel him, too. And I’ll take his powers, and I’ll become stronger after each one.”

Smoochums finished copying the android and Jazzlyn grabbed Jackson's circuit boards, disconnecting them with a knife. She put them in a sack, hoisted it on her shoulder and said, “I love this job.”

Chapter 16

X and Shortcut made their way down an avenue in the red light district. Bright lights, neon signs, women in display windows, driverless cars chauffeuring women and johns around, people in furry animal costumes doing sexual dances on corners for tips, dark alleys with moaning sounds coming from them—the sights didn’t bother X, but Shortcut kept his head down.
 

Here and there, they passed an android on patrol. The androids nodded at X.

“I’d hate to be an android here,” Shortcut said. “I’m sure they see things that no human would want to see.”

“They’re often tougher and smarter,” X said. “These are some of the most dangerous humans in the city, Shortcut. You never know what they’re going to do.”

“The red light way,” Shortcut said.

They turned onto a street with casinos, bars, and restaurants. A live band played punk music under a canopy on the sidewalk. People flooded around them, drinking and fondling each other. It smelled like weed and urine.