The Silver Six

by C. A. Gray

  “We’ll send them a message on the Commune and explain later,” Liam told me, correctly reading my conflicted expression. His tone was still all business as he guided me inside. The door closed behind us, and he pointed to Hepzibah, then at Andy. “He needs his A.E. chip removed before we get far,” he commanded her, and Hepzibah gave him a tiny little bow. Hepzibah began to wheel over to Andy, whose eyes grew wide. Then Liam made his way to the cockpit, presumably to give instructions to the pilot bot. Just before he disappeared behind the curtain, he snapped sarcastically, “I’m sure the two of you have a lot to catch up on, anyway. I know when I’m a third wheel.”

  A few seconds later, the hovercraft swooped up into the air. I scanned the ground for Jake and Julie, but we disappeared so fast that even if they’d run out into the street, I wouldn’t have seen them. I looked at Andy and found him also looking back at me with alarm, as Hepzibah injected him with an anesthetic sedative.

  “Rebecca—!” he squeaked in alarm.

  “You’ll be fine. It’ll wear off fast, you won’t even feel it.”

  As Andy fell unconscious and Hepzibah went to work, the full weight of our situation finally sank in.

  I got my wish. Andy was coming to the compound with me.

  So why did I feel so desolate?

  Chapter 10

  When Andy awoke, he groaned once, and his hand instinctively flew to his temple, now covered in gauze. He blinked, looking disoriented as he looked around at the craft.

  “Hey,” I murmured. “How do you feel?”

  He grunted in response, shuffling to his feet, and seating himself across from me with effort. Finally he cleared his throat.

  “So, you… said you have a lot to tell me?” he said at last. Then he gestured around us and said, “I mean, we’re in a stolen Republic hovercraft, and your house got torn apart, so…”

  I took a deep breath to steady myself. Focus, Rebecca, I commanded myself. Later I could deal with Liam’s fury, and I couldn’t attend to the confrontation with Mom until it actually happened. The only thing I could do now was explain what was going on to Andy—exactly what I’d have given anything for a few hours before. Now, here he was, looking all shy and awkward and totally at my mercy.

  I’d gotten him into this; I owed him the truth, at least.

  “You got Francis’s message on the Commune about Halpert and his board, I assume.”

  Andy waffled his head to the side, the type of nod that meant ‘sort of.’ “Yeah, but I don’t really get why that’s such a big deal.”

  I stared at him: first uncomprehending, then appalled. “You don’t get why that’s such a big—”

  “I mean, sure, they’ve lied to us,” Andy cut off my echo, which was all I could manage at the moment. “But what does it really change about our lives, though? We were trying to create bots like that anyway with Halpert’s challenge. So they existed already. So what? Why is all this necessary?” He gestured at the hovercraft.

  My eyes darted around the hovercraft cabin as if I were looking for an anchor, something that would make Andy’s words make sense. “Because… not only were the mandates of the Council of Synthetic Reason completely ignored twenty years ago, but in order to cover it up, Halpert and his board have been killing people. Including my father! And Liam’s brother,” I gestured to the cockpit, “and they almost killed Liam and Francis and me. They would have succeeded if my mom hadn’t shown up and saved us all in the nick of time, and I guarantee they’d kill her too if they could get their hands on her…”

  “Well, okay, that’s all really bad, I get that,” said Andy, in a tone that implied he saw nothing of the kind. He even seemed annoyed. “But now the secret’s out, at least to those of us on the Commune. They can’t kill us all, and Halpert’s challenge made this inevitable anyway. If they’d just come out and admit they’re robots and stop keeping it a secret, we’d all get used to it, and it would be fine now!”

  I opened my mouth to protest, but stopped myself, closing my eyes. This was a losing proposition. I could already see that nothing I said would convince Andy, and the more I tried and failed, the angrier I would get. He just doesn’t understand, I told myself. He hasn’t lost anybody. It’s completely foreign to his experience. He’ll understand soon enough.

  This mental reset took me only a few seconds; I reopened my eyes, deliberately controlling my breathing in an attempt to slow my racing heart and rising blood pressure. “Tell me about school since I last saw you at the meeting,” I said, as pleasantly as I could.

  “School?” he repeated, confused by the subject change. “Oh, um… well, I guess I won’t be going back for awhile…”

  “Maybe never,” I agreed with the plastic smile still in place. Then I shrugged, still trying to act natural. “But, how was the last of it?”

  He cleared his throat uncomfortably, probably not sure how to react to my strange behavior. “Well, we were in the middle of the worldwide Celebration of Equality week…”

  “What’s that?”

  He shrugged. “Most of our normal classes were cancelled and we had a bunch of special assemblies and guest speakers discussing the history of Synthetic Reasoning and all the advancements since it began.”

  My fake smile evaporated. “What does ‘equality’ mean in this case?”

  He caught my tone and blinked, moving his head an inch or two away from mine. “It just means the bots are helping to put people on the same level economically, and in terms of opportunity and healthcare. That kind of thing. It’s not really disputable.”

  “It’s complete propaganda!” I nearly shouted.

  Andy’s eyes bugged out, and he raised both hands. “Why are you yelling at me?”

  “I’m sorry,” I gasped, trying to get ahold of myself. Rather than speaking again, which would be dangerous, I just breathed for a few seconds until I had recovered enough to speak normally. Then I looked at him again and said with carefully controlled emotion, “If you cherry-pick your facts and don’t show the whole picture, it’s very easy to make anything mean anything. The fact that they have a worldwide week dedicated to just that tells me that it’s a coordinated brainwashing attempt.” And it’s clearly working, I added to myself silently.

  “If you say so,” Andy murmured, still looking alarmed.

  I tried again to redirect the conversation. “So how is Yolanda doing?” Not my favorite topic, but it was the one that popped into my head.

  “She’s fine, I guess,” he shrugged. “We haven’t been hanging out that much lately.”

  Which is why he came to the Quantum Track station to pick me up, I thought. I’d been right.

  “So… what was that comm I got all about?” Andy ventured.

  I shook my head. “What comm?”

  “It was anonymous, but it said, ‘Rebecca wants you to know that she loves you’?”

  My mouth fell open, and I felt the heat flooding my face.

  “What did that mean?” Andy prodded.

  “Madeline,” I murmured to myself, before schooling my face to look casual, except for the burning in my cheeks. “She… knew I was in danger. In case something happened to me, she… probably just wanted the people I cared about to know… that I cared.”

  I am gonna kill her.

  “Oh, okay.”

  I stared at Andy in disbelief, as he looked out the window. He bought that?

  I waited for him to probe me further, heart pounding. If he had feelings for me too, as more than friends, he’d be a man and say so now. He’d never have a better opening than that.

  Don’t. Don’t. Don’t, I begged him silently, with every beat of my heart. I’d analyze why I didn’t want him to later. Right now it was a pure blind terror that he would, and I couldn’t think beyond what would happen if he did, only that I desperately didn’t want him to go there. Not now. Not yet. I wasn’t ready.

  Andy said nothing more. When I realized he wasn’t going to say anything more,
my panic subsided to disappointment, and my disappointment sank into despair. I don’t know how I managed to not cry as my thoughts took this miserable turn. If I had cried, I could have explained it away easily enough, considering everything that had happened—but I held it together.

  Why had he come? Why had I convinced him to meet me at the station? This was going to be horrible—like constant torture all day, every day, on top of everything else!

  I felt the hovercraft begin to descend, and a new kind of dread swept over me. Mom.

  When we slowed to touch down, I realized we were at the Quantum Track station in Kansas City, and not at the compound. Liam emerged from the cockpit, his face just as stony as before. He also had deep circles under his eyes, I noticed. He looked exhausted. I stood up.

  “What are we doing?”

  “This is where I left my car,” he told me, his tone unreadable. “I’m still going to get supplies. The pilot bot will take you back to the compound from here. I directed him to take a circuitous route and avoid any other hovercars so that anybody who might have seen us will lose the trail before you get there.”

  “You look like you’re about to fall over,” I observed.

  He shrugged. “Side effect of the pain meds. I’ll be fine, I’ll sleep well tonight.” He hesitated, and his body gave a tiny lurch in my direction, but stopped. He looked at me and then at Andy, and then turned around and headed for the door of the hovercraft. It slid open.

  “Liam!” I called after him.

  He turned around, and I closed the distance between us and threw my arms around him, feeling a swooping sensation in my stomach that I ignored. He hesitated, surprised, and then wrapped his arms around me too. He didn’t crush me against him like he had that morning, but when he pulled back—were those tears in his eyes? He didn’t look at me long enough for me to know for sure. He just kissed my forehead swiftly as he released me, and vanished through the hovercraft door without another word.

  The door closed again on its own as I stared after him, wondering why my chest ached.

  “I don’t think he likes me very much,” Andy observed as the hovercraft swept back up into the air. “So… how long before I can go back home again?”

  I stared at him, blinked, and looked away. There was no point.

  We arrived back at the compound around mid-afternoon: amazing how much had happened in only a few short hours. Mom came out to the makeshift hovercraft tarmac to meet me. I thought she might yell the moment my feet touched the ground—but I wasn’t surprised when she didn’t. She just stood on the tarmac, staring at me as I approached her, arms folded across her chest, not helping me close the distance between us. When I got close enough, I saw the little muscle in her jaw visibly clench. But she unfolded her arms, and pulled me into a surprisingly fierce hug.

  “I’m sorry, Mom,” I blurted, returning the fierceness of her hug. “It was stupid, I should have asked, I should have talked to you. I won’t do it again, I promise!”

  She sucked in a noisy breath through her nostrils, a signal I knew meant she was trying to rein in her own emotions. She pulled me back by the shoulders, and looked at me, searching my face, her chin trembling even as she kept her jaw clenched. Her eyes darted over my shoulder to Andy.

  “Welcome,” she said tightly, in a tone that implied he was anything but. She glanced back at me, and I knew she was searching my face, knowing full well how I felt about Andy. I was too ashamed to meet her gaze. So my eyes were on the ground behind her when I saw the little silver robot roll up beside her.

  “Madeline!” I cried, falling to my knees and opening my arms.

  “Rebecca!” she met my enthusiasm as she always did, doubling her speed as she rolled into my waiting arms, and I enveloped her cold little body. “I was so worried about you!” she piped.

  I laughed, crushing her against me. “You were, huh?” I said.

  Chapter 11

  Mack came out of the compound after Mom did, and took Andy firmly by the shoulders, guiding him inside. Before they turned their backs to me, I saw Mack’s stern expression. He was saying something, and Andy looked vaguely alarmed. I glanced at Mom, who gave me a tight-lipped smile.

  “Believe it or not, Mack’s grown fond of you,” was all she said.

  I carried Madeline inside, even though she could have rolled—I just didn’t want to let her go. She felt like a lifeline. Mom kept one arm wrapped around my waist as we walked.

  “So tell me the truth. How much of this little adventure of yours was really about rescuing Madeline, and how much was about him?”

  I shrugged, a little sheepish. “It was something I hoped for, but didn’t really expect.” Then I sighed. “Actually, it didn’t happen the way I wanted it to at all.” As we passed back into the compound and ascended the stairs to the domed study, I confessed how Julie and Jake had gone next door, and Liam showed up at the ransacked house while Andy and I were alone there. “It was Liam who made him come in the end. He felt Andy knew too much, and he’d be in danger if we left him there.”

  Mom nodded. “He might have been, if Wallenberg had gotten ahold of him and started questioning him,” she murmured.

  I set Madeline down on the carpeted floor beside the coffee table, as Mom and I settled on the brown faux leather couch. There was a fireplace in one corner, unlit at the moment, and above us was a broad expanse of blue sky and puffy white clouds.

  “I am concerned about your other two friends though,” Mom murmured. “They at least know we’re within driving distance of the Kansas City Quantum Track, which would narrow down Wallenberg’s search for us considerably. I wish Liam had brought them back here too, for the same reason.”

  “He would have, but he thought it was riskier to run around town looking for them.”

  Mom nodded, thoughtful. “I might have made the same call, I don’t know. But if Wallenberg connects them to you—” she shook her head. “No, we’re gonna have to get them here, I think. But Julie knows at least the station she needs to come to. Make sure they haven’t told anybody else anything, and tell them to misdirect if possible—have them make up a story that they’re going somewhere believable, but totally different.”

  “Bali?” I suggested. “They both spent a summer there independently. Maybe they want to go back to experience it together. It’s the sort of spontaneous thing Jake would think up, and Julie would go along with.”

  “Perfect, they tell everyone they’re going to spend the rest of Spring Break in Bali,” Mom agreed. “We need them to purchase the Quantum Track tickets to get there, in case anybody investigates, too. They’ll have to check in with fingerprints but ‘forget’ something and get off before the Track actually leaves. I’ll get them tickets to Kansas City under pseudonyms with a claim code instead of fingerprints so it won’t be traceable to them. Come on.” We’d only just gotten to the study, but Mom stood up—I thought she was going to the basement, but then I saw a netscreen in the corner beside a rolling chair. I marveled as her fingers flew, just like Francis’s and Larissa’s and Liam’s. She easily located Julie and Jake’s Commune LP addresses, and composed a message, identifying herself and explaining her plan.

  “Becca and Andy are there? They’re ok?” Jake wrote. “Thank God, we were so freaked out when we saw the hovercraft!”

  “The whole town is talking about that and your house,” Julie added. “Of course Roy Benson is telling everyone it was Wallenberg’s doing and it’s because of the Commune message you sent out about them being bots—”

  Mom’s brow knit in consternation. “I’m afraid Roy isn’t long for this world,” she murmured.

  “Should we bring him too?” I asked, but Mom shook her head.

  “He doesn’t know where you came from. They do.”

  “But I thought you had him ship Madeline here!”

  She smiled at me, like I was a little child. “He shipped Madeline to New York,” she reminded me. “We just went there to pick it u
p.”

  I stared at her like I’d never seen her before. “Have you always been like this?”

  “Pretty much.” She turned back to the netscreen, opening several windows at once to create the false trail as she messaged Julie and Jake on my behalf.

  Jake and Julie agreed to the plan, though Julie whined about what a shame it was to buy tickets to Bali and not use them. Couldn’t they go, and then head to Kansas City afterwards? Nobody was looking for them yet anyway. Mom told her no, in no uncertain terms, and that was that. She turned back to me.

  “So. Francis and Larissa?”

  I shrank back a bit. She didn’t sound accusing, but I knew she already knew, from Dr. Yin. “Are trying to rescue Alessandra Russo,” I finished her question.

  She sighed. “Your idea. Right?”

  “It was Francis’s idea, actually. But she was innocent, Mom.”

  “I know that, Rebecca, but so is Roy, and—” she stopped herself. “Nevermind. What’s done is done. Where did they go?”

  I explained what I knew of their plan, and when I got to the part about her hiding on the prison grounds, Mom closed her eyes, trying to control her reaction.

  “It’s Francis,” I pointed out, desperate for her to forgive me. “He’s brilliant. If anybody can do it, he can!”

  “And when did you become such a fan of his?” she asked dryly.

  “I’m not, I can’t stand him. But I can acknowledge facts.”

  “He is very sharp,” Mom admitted, “but I don’t know if that will be enough. I hate to send more resources out to help them, though—the hovercraft has been conspicuous enough.” She frowned, pulling up the Commune database. I saw her match LP addresses to physical locations, and in a separate screen, she zoomed in on the prison address. She surrounded it with LP addresses from Commune members, within a twenty mile radius.