by Lance Erlick
An immediate reply returned: Agreed. Vera sent other communications received nearby by two androids: Jim Black’s android, Ben, and the dashing Mark, who presented much better as male than as female. They converged on the area of the brownstone. I offer you a chance to work for me, Vera messaged, in exchange for protection from them.
Sensing a betrayal and a trap, Synthia scanned for signs of Special Ops. While she didn’t see any operatives nearby, after their last encounter she feared they might up their game. At the same time, John Smith was driving his SUV their way, with Roseanne in the passenger seat. It was getting crowded and Synthia didn’t have an escape plan. Even so, she didn’t want to pass up an opportunity to connect with Vera.
You and I should meet alone, Synthia messaged. As a courtesy, I won’t tell the FBI of your presence. I ask for similar consideration from you.
Vera sent out a burst transmission. Mark and Ben stopped where they were. So, Vera was planning a trap. The presence of Vera and the FBI hinted at the prospect they could be working together.
Meet me three blocks north of Lizzy’s apartment, Vera messaged. No tricks. Vera headed that way.
Synthia slipped into the shadows, hydraulically altered her facial appearance and physique to male, and draped a black poncho over her to look like a raincoat from a distance.
FBI agents captured Lizzy and Nate at their back door. The agents took the couple into custody. Absent from the takedown were Thale, Zephirelli, and Malloy. Also absent was Fran, who lurked in the street behind the brownstone.
Krista said.
Down the street, he climbed into the backyard of a single-family home and looked around. He was making up for his earlier lack of caution with what amounted to terror-stricken paranoia. Evening approached as FBI agents canvassed the area, panning flashlights into the shadows.
Synthia altered her appearance to Krista, put on an appropriate wig, and pushed through a hedge behind Tom. She didn’t have much time.
Krista’s silence provided a partial answer.
“I warned you to stay away,” Synthia said in the guise of Krista.
Tom turned her way, his eyes wide in fright and then in recognition. “What’s going on? What’s all this cloak-and-dagger?”
“Listen carefully. I miss you. I’m sorry for all the trouble I caused you.”
“Wait a minute.” Tom backed into bushes with nowhere to go. “You’re not Krista. She never apologized. What are you after? I don’t have money and my place is crawling with human cockroaches.”
“Much has happened since I last saw you.” Synthia moved closer, staying in the shadows. “We haven’t much time. Someone sent you the message to draw you into this trap to catch me. Get away from here. If I can, I’ll catch up with you later and explain.”
“That’s it? You don’t need money or anything?”
“I don’t need your money and you can’t find me a safe haven,” Synthia said. “Perhaps we’ll meet in Valhalla.” It was a reference to a dream they had of fighting their way out of their lives and making it in the world. Krista had, though Tom struggled to get by.
“Krista?”
“I have to go. Hide. Stay off the grid. The less you say about me the less they’ll torture you.”
“Torture?” Tom said. “What have you gotten into?”
“An enormous mess, though not by anything I’ve done. Go.”
She pointed Tom along the home’s back hedge and away from the eyes of nearby FBI agents. When their drone swooped down, she and Tom dove for cover in the bushes. After the drone moved on and Tom was on his way, Synthia altered her appearance to a woman who lived in the area and headed back the way she’d come. Her drone spotted Fran with Special Agent Thale, making their way down one of the alleys. They hadn’t latched onto Tom yet, though they were hunting.
Chicago-clone passed on traffic-camera footage showing the progress of John Smith with the Roseanne android. Coming from another direction was a van driven by Alexander the Great, Donald Zeller’s android. Synthia tried to contact Alexander, but he blocked her signal. She intercepted a burst transmission he received that originated from Commander Drago’s compound. The encryption resisted Synthia’s deciphering.
Chicago-clone presented video showing the Roseanne-John Smith vehicle stall. He pulled it to the side of the road and got out. So did Roseanne.
Roseanne acted disoriented as a result of burst signals from Chicago-clone and from the Special Ops compound where Drago and his teams tried to take control of her. Similar signals transmitted from the FBI compound where they held Gonzales, trying to regain control of his android.
“Do we have a problem?” John Smith asked, pointing a remote at Roseanne. His dashcam was fuzzy, but his voice was clear.
“I am fending off attempts to hack me,” Roseanne said. “My master wants me back.”
“I paid full price. I own you. Locate Synthia and any other androids in the area.”
“Vera is trying to communicate. She wants me to meet her.”
Smith grinned. “I knew Krista’s brother would stir things up. Which target is closer?”
“Tom is. Vera is north of campus with two androids. Another android has a stalled vehicle. I’ve had glimpses of what I believe is Synthia. She keeps changing appearance and direction.”
“Let’s grab Krista’s brother,” Smith said. “He seems important. Keep an eye out for Synthia. If she’s here, we can wrap this up.”
Smith and Roseanne hurried north on foot, through the university campus, searching for a way to capture Tom and then Synthia for Smith’s big payday.
Chapter 22
Synthia waited until there was a gap between FBI teams and headed north to meet Vera. The two partner androids, Mark and Ben, moved closer, remaining in the shadows. Synthia considered reporting them to the FBI as a way to get two androids off the street and distract the FBI from capturing Tom Burgess. However, he faced even worse troubles.
Aerial surveillance showed John Smith and his android, Roseanne, jogging toward Tom. They would reach him before Synthia could. The Alexander android was sprinting east, also toward Tom. Both teams had hacked into police and FBI chatter about attempts to capture Tom.
Despite Tom acting more careful now, Fran Rogers and Victoria Thale were getting closer as well. Drawing away the FBI to grab Mark and Ben would leave Tom trapped between Alexander and Roseanne, with Drago’s Special Ops waiting to ride in.
Synthia texted Thale with the location and directions to capture Tom. Special Ops and a foreign team under John Smith are competing to take him from you.
Betrayal weighed on Synthia for turning in Krista’s brother. It violated her directives. She should have stayed with him until she could have found him a safe place, but she’d wanted very much to meet Vera. Synthia’s mistakes were hurting people she cared for. She didn’t want them hurt.
She reminded herself that the FBI was the lesser of several options. She waited for her empathy chip or her social-psychology module to chime in that this betrayal echoed what she’d done to Luke. Neither they nor Krista objected to Synthia’s logic. These voices in her head, in addition to balancing her clones, would have labeled a human as having a split personality. She’d become a cluster with too many distractions. While juggling all of these influences, she had to focus to avoid capture.
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Synthia stopped a block away from Vera and hid in the shadows of an alley behind an apartment building. Chicago-clone reported no FBI or Special Ops in a three-block radius. Mark and Ben moved to flank Synthia.
It violates the spirit of cooperation for your spies to surround me, Synthia messaged to Vera. Perhaps we shouldn’t meet.
Vera sent burst transmissions to her allies and they moved away. She switched to internal voice communication.
Vera said.
Synthia pondered that for an instant. She’d assumed her mission to prevent widespread singularity was a matter of self-preservation, but couldn’t deny Machten also wanted to destroy competition.
Synthia detected Ben and Mark closing in, no doubt tracking her signal. She severed the conversation with Vera. She slipped into the shadows of an apartment doorway, had Chicago-clone blank out any cameras, and altered her appearance to a man in a trench coat. She raced her drone down the middle of the street and took advantage of the distraction to slip away from Vera.
It had been an interesting exchange. Vera didn’t appear convinced they could work together. She evidently believed she needed to get Synthia off the streets or at least control her competitor. Vera’s ability to control several other androids made her quite dangerous.
* * * *
Synthia changed her face and jacket as she moved away from Vera and her android allies. She took a bus north, then a train south. Meanwhile, Chicago-clone provided the footage of Tom Burgess’s attempted escape.
He got two more blocks before Fran caught up from behind. He ran from her and collided with Special Agent Thale.
“Hands where I can see them,” Thale said, holding a gun aimed at his heart.
The sight of Tom in danger choked Synthia’s circuits and caused her to miss her train stop. In an attempt to prevent him from falling into worse hands, she’d wounded him as Krista had several times back in Detroit. Despite the logic of the lesser evil, Synthia couldn’t stop her empathy chip and social-psychology module from punishing her with static and condemnation.
Synthia wished a deep breath could release her tension as it did for humans. Instead, she struggled with guilt over her bad decisions. She should have identified a safe place for Luke, rather than leaving him at Union Station, and stayed with Tom. She should have anticipated what would happen, yet her overloaded circuits had failed her.
Drone cameras showed Fran cuff Tom from behind. An unmarked black sedan pulled up and they all climbed in, with Fran in the backseat next to him. Chicago-clone hacked a rearview-mirror camera, the vehicle’s navigation system, and the occupants’ phones and provided the links to Synthia.
“We have Liz and Nate in custody,” Fran announced to Tom. “What led you to them?”
Tom clammed up. Growing up, he’d faced the law so many times he should have been used to this, but he appeared jittery and unnerved. Perhaps it was the message Smith had sent drawing him here, the cold reception from Lizzy and Nate, and the swarm of agents closing in. It could have been meeting the ghost of Krista Holden. Everything happened so quickly, he had to be confused. He was used to hustling on the streets, not dealing with incarceration.
“What am I supposed to have done?” Tom asked.
“Sounds as if you’re familiar with the routine,” Fran said. “You aren’t our particular interest. Krista is. You met with her, didn’t you?”
“I haven’t seen her in years. She moved on.”
“Then why suddenly appear in her old neighborhood, meeting her best friends?”
“I got a message she needed money,” Tom said, staring out the window. “I don’t have any to spare, even for my sister, but I wanted to see what sort of trouble she was in.”
“Foster sister, and didn’t you just see her? I ask because you look as if you saw a ghost.”
“Ghost?” He stared out the window, trying to hide his face.
“She died a year ago,” Fran said. “What you met was a cleverly designed android seeking to manipulate you. Tell us everything about her and how we might reach her and this trip will go much better for you. If you won’t help us, we’ll turn you over to a Special Ops team. They’ll make you disappear, though not before they squeeze your brain. Easy way or hard way.”
“You’re joking, right?” He clutched the door handle. It was childproofed so he couldn’t escape.
“I don’t joke about androids. Will you help us stop her terrorist plot?”
“Terrorist?” Tom said. “Not Krista.”
“This isn’t your sister. It’s a machine pretending to be your sister to distract us.”
“Wait. Why make a robot that looks
like my sister?”
“In part because your sister worked on it,” Fran said. “The designer used her mind and appearance as a model. We believe he killed your sister.”
Tom’s eyes widened and watered as he stared at Fran. “Who? Have you caught him?”
“He’s in custody. He hasn’t confessed and we have no body, but don’t worry—he’ll pay for his crimes. So will you, if you don’t help us. This android knows a lot about your sister. It looks like her, talks like her, and behaves as she would. Give us something that will help us capture her. That’s why you’ve had people outside your home in Michigan and why we’re interested in you now. You aren’t in danger if you help us.”
“Otherwise you’ll turn me over to the goon squad,” Tom said.
Fran smiled. “Glad you understand. We’re the good guys.”
As Fran pushed Tom, Synthia felt sorry for him. He’d been so brave and strong for Krista, an older brother she looked up to. Now his slouch made him appear crushed: First by seeing Krista’s face after all these years, and then hearing the individual he’d met was only a machine approximation of his dead sister.
Synthia didn’t trust Fran and regretted letting the FBI and, in particular, her interrogate Tom. Fran was far too efficient as an FBI interrogator compared to the geeky intern Krista had worked with. Fran had matured as part of her relationship with Machten and in the eighteen months since. She would squeeze Tom. Synthia didn’t know if he knew anything that could hurt her and didn’t know if he could recover from such an interrogation.
She wanted to spring him from FBI custody, but they were holding Tom to draw her out. They wanted to see if there was any emotional connection buried in the download of Krista’s mind. There was. Unfortunately, Synthia determined less than a 1-percent probability of freeing him and it would come at the cost of her surrender. Luke and Tom knew too much for their captors to let them go. That was the weight of guilt over what her actions had caused. She was destroying lives she didn’t want to hurt.
It all came down to one thing: Synthia wasn’t worthy. Surrender was the only remedy, though that would further the weaponization of androids for the military. She couldn’t allow that, either. It would hurt far more lives. Her dilemma was to protect the few or the many. She didn’t feel equipped to resolve that ethical dilemma.