Living in Syn

by Bobby Draughon

  Susan sank lower in her chair and said nothing.

  The anger continued to well up in Mission and he poured it all over the conversation. "And I want to know where she was when she went renegade, and when. Because after tangling with her, I know what happened to Miller. He was killed by a combat model. It’s the only answer!"

  Susan shook her head. "Not again Mission.” She shook her head. “Miller made a mistake and he died."

  Mission jumped up, much to his sorrow as his wound reminded him to not make sudden movements. He hissed at Susan, "You are condescending toward me at every opportunity because I don't have a degree in Robotics, but for some reason you think you know everything about my job. Well, let me tell you something. Miller taught me how to survive in this business and he would never let himself get boxed in like that. Never!"

  Mission realized he was shouting. He pulled in the finger he had been shaking emphatically and sat down. "I'm ... I'm sorry Susan. I don't like it when I shout. I assume you don't either."

  "You needn't worry. I understand perfectly." Her expression said she didn't care to understand. She stood up and said, "I think now would be a good time for me to leave."

  That shocked Mission. "No, wait Susan. I didn't want this. And I do want you to get your interview material. Fair is fair."

  Again the frosty smile. "I think your emotional state might skew the input. Perhaps we can reschedule ... "

  Now Mission's voice took on the tone of pleading. "Look. Susan. You have to admit there are some irregular things going on. I'm talking about highly volatile, combat trained and armored syns with first strike capability, walking around among us. Doesn't that scare you? Have you ever heard of a syn striking first? "

  Again that damned smile. "I think you need to rest, recover, and get off the Dilaudid. Then you'll feel differently."

  She turned to walk out the door. Mission said, "Well, I know one thing that won't change. You know why Brown came after me when he could have dropped to the ground and escaped? Revenge. He told me he loved the female!"

  Boom! He scored a direct hit on Susan and it took her a while to compose her face. She tried the genuine smile, failed miserably and said, "That's ... interesting. I will talk to you next week. Good-bye."

  Mission watched her walk to the elevator, and in the midst of his emotional outburst, along with his massive injuries, and the effects of heavy-duty pain killers, he still found time to contemplate her backside. He shook his head. He knew she would dig out at answers to at least some of the questions. But would she share them with him?

  4

  The chime sounded softly one and only one time. Mission looked disgusted. No matter what criteria he used to screen out junk mail, the addressing vendors found a way around it in less than a week. This time it was only three days.

  No doubt he had a cheery advert telling him that for a small fee, he could have a time-stamped, validated health card to carry. Now he could play the field and play it safe, too. Or perhaps a public service announcement asking him to conserve precious natural resources and opt for cremation after organ donation, all on his operator's permit. Not that he disagreed with the message. He disliked the E-Mail itself. It almost forced you to go through every message. His all-time record was 812 messages in one day. And that was with his criteria refusing much of the junk mail.

  He looked for his remote and then realized he was wasting his time. All he had to do was talk to the damned system.

  "Computer. Identify sender of last received message."

  Even Mission had to admit that the computer's voice was quite pleasant. Now it purred, "No sender is associated with this message."

  Incredulous, Mission asked "Can they do that? I programmed you to reject…"

  "Syntax error. Subject 'they' unidentified. Predicate 'that' un ... "

  "Alright, alright, alright. It was a rhetorical question anyway. Jesus!"

  That is why Mission had looked first for the remote. He talked to the computer and things flowed so naturally that it felt like talking to a person. And then the instant he talked to it like a person, it slapped his hands and reminded him it was a computer.

  "Display message."

  Mission studied the message. Standard format. No identifying characteristics.

  Sender:

  To: Mission

  Information of interest.

  Attachment 1

  Attachment 2

  Attachment 3

  He saved the attachments to his private library and wiped the message from his mailbox. He opened the first one.

  Query: Identify female synthetic recovered in local Free Zone on October 7. Profile indicates xF889 designation or similar. Special skills may include reconnaissance, personal combat. Identify all renegade females with a 60% match or higher.

  Response: 17, 411 total renegade females searched

  0 matches

  Mission smiled. "Susan. Well, what do you know? She may be human after all." He opened the second attachment.

  Query: Search all diagnostics reports and Field Test Evaluations for indications of pair bonding including selecting lovers/partners, obsession with human reproduction or childbearing, or any attempts at forming synthetic-to-synthetic social oriented relationships.

  Response:

  83,441,027 diagnostics reports and

  129,732 field test evaluations searched

  47 matches as follows:

  31 diagnosed schizophrenics involved references to families

  31 synthetics destroyed

  16 diagnosed manic depressives involved delusions of reproducing and building families

  16 synthetics destroyed

  Additional Information: Full diagnostics reports including counselor narrative opinion are available on each of the query matches. Would you like a copy of this data?

  No

  End

  Well, as much as he appreciated Susan's help, her queries had gone nowhere. Mission hoped he was not being an idiot for trusting her. He opened the third attachment and his mouth dropped open. She sent him the file on Miller's attempted recovery, the one that got him killed. Bless you Susan.

  He started to dig through the file, when he stopped. Something wasn't right. He didn't know what it was, but a tiny voice in his head told him he was overlooking something. He reasoned that it had to be in the first two attachments. He pulled up number one again. Yeah, yeah. Search all records, no matches. He pulled up the second one. Okay, only references to family limited to a small percentage of irreversible emotional disturbances. He couldn't say yet if the female was emotionally disturbed. He would have to know more about what was programmed versus what she learned after-factory. Brown didn't seem disturbed though.

  He split the screen and looked at the messages side by side. He looked at the first message again. That was it!

  "Computer, call Susan St. Jean."

  "Her office or home number?"

  "Do you even have her home number? I'm not sure Susan has a home. She probably sleeps at the office."

  "No home number is on file."

  "Well then why did you ask me? Dial her damned work number!"

  Mission continued to mutter to himself. "Stupid machine asks if I want to dial her home so that if I say yes, she says, Sorry, I don't have that number. It's enough to make me forget why I wanted to call her in the first place."

  He looked up to the vue screen and realized that Susan was watching and listening. She flashed her frosty smile and said, "I hope you're not calling to have me referee this argument with your computer."

  Mission grinned ruefully. "No, no. First I wanted to thank you for your ... assistance. I do appreciate it."

  Susan said, "I don't know what you are talking about. But in any case, you are welcome."

  He nodded. "On another subject, I wondered why our female syn wasn't identified through brain analysis."

  Susan stared at him and said, "Don't go senile on me yet, Mission. You fried her brain. Complete destruction of synaptic p
athways. 14 petabytes scrubbed in less than half a second. How do you analyze that?"

  Mission stared at her. She's the one going crazy. "I didn't fry her. I hit her with a 70neg charge in the head, but it glanced off the reinforced skull casing. It burnt the skin off, but it didn’t penetrate the brain. Trust me, you can tell. When that ionized charge touches the brain, the syn jumps five feet in the air. All motor groups contract simultaneously. No, I brought her down with five shots to the thoracic cavity. No brain damage."

  Susan looked critically at him. "Mission, I attended the autopsy. They popped the skull casing and showed me a black, brittle wad of plastic where a brain used to be."

  He couldn't believe this. "Look, Susan. I'll prove it to you. I'll pull up my pay record and show you. Computer. Split screen, display Paradox pay record for October 7 unidentified female."

  The record came up and even as Mission triumphantly said, "See?", Susan said, "My God Mission, don't you even look at your own pay records?"

  Mission looked again and there it was. A 5% bonus for electrocution. He slowly got his mouth in gear. "Well ... no. I mean I kinda looked at it that night that you came over. I mean, why should I check out the electrocution bonus when I know I don't get it?"

  Susan stared fixedly. "I don't know."

  "Well, if we're both telling the truth, then someone is hiding something from you. Isn't your department the only one to get the brain after an autopsy?"

  She nodded.

  "I think you should watch out, Susan. It feels like someone is hiding something. I'm going to work on unraveling this from my end but I'm not forgetting about your interests. Do you want to schedule an interview for the October 7 recoveries?"

  She was lost in thought. Then she snapped out of it and said, "Yes, most definitely. Will you be ready to travel two weeks from today? 1:00? Fine, I'll see you then."

  "Good-bye, Susan."

  The screen dissolved to gray and Mission started plotting his next move.

  5

  Mission missed the Dilaudid. His brain felt like one of those hamster wheels, spinning furiously and going nowhere at all, but generating plenty of squeaks and rattles and other distractions. Many times, it kept him up all night, and when he finally did sleep, it was erratic and fitful, a succession of nightmares, and absolutely no rest. The Dilaudid sheltered him from all that, but now it was gone. So tonight he would turn to his good friend Jose Cuervo. As his one concession to civilization, Mission poured it into a glass first even though he drank it straight.

  With a comfortable, warm sensation spreading through his midsection, he picked up the hard copy of Miller's file. Good secretary. She had the checklist of documentation as the first page, and it noted and referenced each document in the file. Miller's own files, the police report, the coroner's report, and bios on four different syns that he may have been tracking.

  He flipped through Miller's notes. They weren't much help, even to Mission, who was familiar with his style of note taking. One of the last pages contained:

  dk hair ck f reng

  bl eyes

  mason?

  Forty pages of this mess made up his notes. Maybe the police report would clear up some of his questions. An officer responded to a woman in her 50s who heard indications of a struggle, and then a single sharp scream. A male scream. By the time she looked out her window, there was a man lying in the alley face down. The cop who found Miller dead (see coroner's report) sealed off the alley. The homicide detective arrived about an hour later and made the following observations: 15 to 20 matches and Players cigarette butts just inside the alley. Players cigarettes on Miller led the detective to conclude that Miller waited there for more than two hours. Three white buttons close to the victim matched remaining buttons on the victim's blue shirt.

  Two street vendors recalled seeing Miller standing at the alley entrance. No one remembered seeing anyone else go into or leave the alley. But one of the neighborhood women said that a teenage girl with red hair and a rose tattooed on her breast had been hanging out there lately. The woman speculated that she sold sex and/or drugs but had no empirical evidence.

  The coroner's report was hard on Mission. He poured himself a full glass of Jose.

  "Here's to my buddy Miller. They took you before your time." Mission drained the glass and then opened the report. Coroner could not positively establish cause of death because of the severity of the injuries. A broken neck. A deep bruise over the heart more than four inches wide by one inch high. The blow causing the bruise severely damaged the heart muscle.

  Six different fractures to the face and five teeth broken out. Cuts under both eyes and on the lips. Bruises at the midpoint of the bicep/triceps on each arm, and blunt trauma wounds to the abdomen and thighs. The right arm dislocated from the shoulder.

  The coroner noted that many of these wounds could have been inflicted post mortem. No organs were acceptable as transplant candidates. They cremated the body two hours after approval of the coroner's report.

  Tears formed in Mission's eyes. He wrapped his head in his hands and moaned. "I'll get 'em Miller. It's all I know to do. You're dead and I don't know what else to do. I'll get 'em ........ "

  Mission passed out on the sofa. The alcohol poisoned his dreams and stole his rest. He woke up sitting on top of a dumpster, tucked into a recess in an alley. He looked up toward the street and saw Miller, pulling the smoke in and holding it, just holding it. Then he let the smoke escape and started over. A redheaded hooker, maybe 18 years old walked over to him.

  "Whatcha doing here?"

  Miller gave her a long, hard, appraising stare. "I'm collecting for the Red Cross. You wanna make a donation?"

  She tilted her head as she examined him. "You're a cop, ain'tcha?"

  Miller turned in quiet exasperation and said, "Look sweets, you don't worry about it. I'm not here to give you trouble unless you keep yanking my chain. Understand?"

  She gave him what she probably thought was a seductive look and strolled back to her spot, undoing another blouse button and unsnapping the top snap on her blue jean short shorts.

  Mission screamed "Miller! It's a setup. Get out! We've got to get you out of here."

  Mission looked around but no one heard him. Not Miller nor the hooker nor the people on the street. The instant he came into sight, Mission recognized Miller's mark. Perfect hair. Dark. Blue eyes, smooth complexion, not an ounce of fat. The redhead offered him a good time and he stopped to talk. Miller focused on blowing the perfect smoke ring. As soon as the mark cleared Miller out of his peripheral vision, Miller turned and strolled toward the syn.

  The moment that the street disappeared from Miller's peripheral vision, a twenty-something female with perfect features stepped into the alley, and moved up on Miller, ready to kill.

  Mission screamed again. He pounded on the dumpster and got nowhere. Watching helplessly became the real nightmare.

  Just as he could see Miller's hand starting its move, the female shrewdly pushed a broken bottle with her foot. It was just enough sound to turn Miller around to see what was behind him.

  Miller whirled around and the male syn stepped up behind him, grabbed his arms above the elbows and pulled them behind his back. The syn used a bit too much force and he dislocated the right arm, and forced out a single scream of pain from Miller. The world played in slow motion, and as the male pulled Miller's arms, Mission could see the buttons popping off his shirt, bouncing off the broken asphalt, coming to rest.

  At virtually the same time, the female delivered a shot with the knuckles of a stiff right hand to the left pectoral, and then grabbed his ears and snapped his neck with incredible speed. The female was so fast and so deadly, she inflicted the final ten to twelve blows in less than two seconds. The male dropped Miller's body in a pile of discarded newspapers and they walked out quickly. The redhead stood there, paralyzed with fear. Total time from the male entering the alley till the two syns made their exit: less than 40 seconds.

  Missio
n woke up to his own screams. He went to the bathroom and threw up, and then came back to his living room and poured another drink. Tomorrow when he sobered up, he would consider this dream and then drink even more.

  6

  Mission looked worse now than when he woke up from his nightmare, screaming and shaking. Since he woke up that morning, he cursed his computer as he went over and over the data on the four syns in Miller's file. In the three days since, he didn't take time to eat or to sleep or to shower. His pale complexion and dark circled eyes combined with his scruffy beard stubble to yield a look that morticians dream about. He relocated the coffee machine to an end table in the living room, and his ashtray, a foot in diameter, overflowed with cigarette butts.

  "No dammit! All four files. Split the screen into four columns and display one file in each. Then we are going to compare line by line."

  "This compare has been performed on three separate instances and yielded the following ..."

  "I don't care. Why should you care? You got some place to go? A hot date maybe? Then walk through the compare with me, line at a time, on my command! Now begin!"

  He got so worked up that even he recognized it was unhealthy. He looked at the hard copy he had printed so that he could keep looking even when he moved to the bathroom.

  Look at something new. Something you normally pass over. He flipped through the raw stats from diagnostics, before they were interpreted into a report that could be handled by someone other than a roboticist. Each field showed some cryptic sort of code and then an associated quantity broken into active and reserved.

  He fumbled through the stack of papers and found a legend for the raw stats. The report mapped the different areas of the brain, their intended functions, and different indications of utilization. The computer continued to report on the line by line compare.