by Skye Ryan
Corvan tapped in a series of codes and remotely adjusted the communication unit in Lanis’ office to hover high up and sit on a molding on the ceiling. After a moment of heavy shooting, voices and shouting, Empire clad soldiers burst into the room. The unit picked up the soldiers ransacking Lanis’ office and knocking over papers and furniture. Corvan terminated the feed and sat back.
“Is he--,” Lia began and Corvan shot her a look tinged with grief.
“I think so. The Empire,” he said it with such anger that Lia stepped back. “They’d rather kill everyone than admit that the virus is ravaging us.”
Corvan sat unmoving for a long time, staring at the communication unit. His shoulders shook, but when Lia came around, she saw that he wasn’t crying. He was simply staring with a tired and lost expression.
Before Lia could stop herself, she had placed a hand on his shoulder. Corvan placed his hand over her own and looked up with a grateful, sad smile. “I like your adaptability.”
“Inject me,” she told him. “There is no time to waste.”
Corvan nodded and pulled out an epi-injector. He filled the vials with a silvery substance and then placed the head of the piece against her arm. He looked at her in askance and she nodded. He injected her and at first Lia felt nothing. Then suddenly, she was gasping, her programming was going haywire. Her systems were trying to process the nanites as they infiltrated her systems.
She was unaware that she had fallen to the ground and that Corvan was standing over her, concern and panic written all over his face. Her vision skewed and she could see her parameters trying to adjust for the invasion. And suddenly her vision cleared, and she could see Corvan. She could really see him.
It was as if she were seeing him for the first time. His handsome face hovered over her own.
“Cara!” he cried, “Are you damaged?
She shot him a grin and sat up. “No, I am well.”
“How do you feel or rather how is your programming, your systems operating?”
“They are, well,” she repeated and looked down at her hands in wonder. It was as if the world had taken on a different tinge. It was no longer perfunctory and sharp, instead her vision had—mellowed and she could see tiny nuances in a way that she had when she was wholly human. Her mouth was dry, and she could taste the soup on her tongue that she’d had earlier. Taste. Her mind was no longer just a repository of knowledge, a storehouse of information, instead she was tasting, building an opinion, an impression based upon a number of factors.
She grinned childishly and looked up at Corvan who stared back with a mixture of awe and shock. “I think, I am well. Very well.” She moved closer to Corvan and she kissed him.
She had never kissed anyone before, even as a human. She had always been so afraid of being punished. When the girls back at the Probity practiced on each other, she had always shied away, sure she’d be found out. When the others pleasured themselves at night in the dorms, she’d turned away and tried to never think about the strange feelings emanating from her nether regions. She had been taught that physicality was a sin, and to indulge in it was certain death.
But she wanted to know what it was like. To feel alive for once with a man like Corvan, a man who seemed to be sacrificing everything to find a cure. He seemed to be so different than the men she had known growing up. The men back at the Probity had been cruel and uncaring, their only concern for themselves and their own pleasures. But Corvan—she paused—Corvan was kind, gentle and warm. He began to enthusiastically return her kisses and she moaned. Her cybertronic body and skin felt like it was on fire. Her programming concluding that the fire she was feeling wasn’t real, imagined perhaps, but she was feeling it just the same.
His full lips were brushing softly over hers and she was shuddering with pleasure. His tongue swept inside her mouth and she followed his lead, gently sucking and teasing. He groaned and pushed her down onto the floor. He blazed a trail to her earlobes and she gasped as a montage of sensation spread through her and down to her center. He licked her neck and she threw her head back. They kissed and touched for several minutes before he touched the hem of her shirt. She nodded and she sat up as he pulled it off along with her bra. He teased and tasted the skin of her breasts and Lia’s eyes rolled back into her head. Her senses of touch and feeling were skyrocketing and multiplying and she was powerless to stop it. For once her programming stood silent, unable to decipher the stimuli she was receiving.
He pulled her panties down over her hips and began to discard his own clothing. He kissed her passionately and with hunger, his lips moving across her synthetic skin in ways that made her crave her human body. She could feel the nanites moving ever closer to parts of her brain that simulated pleasure and suddenly, she bucked as he pressed his lips firmly against her mound. She let out a yelp as he continued lower, tasting and touching folds that were aroused and wet with lubrication despite her inhuman state. He stood and she looked at his pulsing manhood. He was long, thick and curved. She had never seen a man naked before, and she filled her eyes with him.
He then moved to cover her body with his own and she sighed with happiness. He nudged her entrance and she fought to expel a pent-up breath. And then he was pushing inside her. Her mind exploded with sensation. She could feel her walls contracting around him as he thrust. It was a feeling she had never felt before. In the back of her mind she acknowledged why so many at the Probity risked being found out for this feeling; it was something indescribable that even in her state she could fully appreciate.
He pistoned in and out of her center and she could only hold on to him as the nanites overwhelmed her with ecstasy, pleasure and feeling. An incredible tension was filling up inside her, winding up quickly like a clock. It was a delicious agony. And then she was falling, her body convulsing around him and she was moaning in his ear, and he was groaning hard in hers. And then he too, came to his completion. They lay still for a long moment and then he looked her in her eyes.
“Who are you?” he asked and moved to sit up.
Lia lowered her gaze. “I don’t understand.”
“You’re not an AI, are you? It all makes sense now. The strange way you relate to people how you act, all of it.”
Lia shook her head. “What you’re suggesting is impossible.”
“What we just did should have been impossible! But you enjoyed what took place just as much as I did.”
Lia said nothing and looked down at the floor. “The nanites--,”
“Can only enhance what’s already there. You have to have some inkling of emotion or sensation for them to amplify it.”
Lia couldn’t deny the truth of his words. Instead she began to gather her clothing and dressed herself.
“No!” Corvan barked. “You do not get to run away from this. Are you some sort of spy for the Empire? Are you trying to entrap me, steal my work?”
Corvan was steadily advancing on her, his expression closed off and angry. Lia shook her head and tried to stifle the growing feeling of panic inside her.
“No, you’re wrong!”
“Am I Cara? Am I wrong?” he shouted and then began to gather his own clothes and dress. “Is it so far-fetched to think that perhaps, I’ve done something good for a change? That I had reached some kind of progress in my work? But no, you’re a damn spy.”
“I am not!” Lia protested. “I am not a spy, I’m just me. Like I’ve always been.”
“Have you? Tell me the truth Cara. Please.”
Lia sat on a stool and chewed her lip thoughtfully. It was a wholly human gesture and Corvan watched her, amazed.
“If I tell you, you have to swear to secrecy.”
“Of course. Who would I tell? Go to the Empire?” Corvan laughed bitterly, “They’d lock me up just as quickly.”
“My name isn’t Cara.”
“Of course it isn’t--,”
“No, I mean I was born with a name.”
“Born,” Corvan repeated, his confusion evident, “AI un
its are created, not born.”
“I was not an AI unit. I was a young woman by the name of Lia Renault.”
Corvan shook his head in disbelief. “Is this some kind of experiment sanctioned by the Empire?”
“No, it wasn’t at all like that. My name is Lia Renault and I grew up on the planet Geides, in a placed called The Probity.”
Corvan had grown eerily silent, and she could see his mind working. “It was a place that was filled with nothing but punishment and duty. I longed to be free of it, I just didn’t know how. I was--,” Lia wasn’t sure how much to reveal and she hesitated before continuing. “I was given an opportunity to escape. I was going to turn it down, I was too afraid to run.”
Lia moved to stand in front of him. “I was falsely accused and I had no choice. I implanted my consciousness into this body. My real body is somewhere on a planet controlled by the resistance and I need to get it back.”
Stunned, Corvan simply started at for a time. Then he reached out touched the fall of her hair and the softness of her face. “All this time I thought you were just adaptable. And really, you were just human. Wow.”
“Corvan--,” Lia reached out to him and he moved away.
“Why did you lie to me?”
“I—I didn’t know who to trust. I just thought—I thought I could get to a safe place and find a ship to retrieve my body. I didn’t know about the virus and everything going on. Please you have to believe me.”
Corvan shook his head. “How do I know you’re not some kind of spy looking to sabotage my research?”
“Corvan, they tried to erase my mind. I had to leave. I don’t know how to prove otherwise.”
“Say I believe you. What do we do now?”
Lia shrugged. “I don’t know. I know I just want to retrieve my body.”
“Are you sure that’s what you need to do? With the virus raging, you’re better off inside that unit than in your body.”
Lia shook her head. “I don’t want to be an AI unit for the foreseeable future. I want my body back.”
Corvan leveled a look of suspicion mixed with concern over at her and sat back. “Help me create a cure and I will work to get your body back.”
Lia rushed to Corvan and gave him a hug. “Thank you Corvan. Thank you.”
“You can’t tell anyone. If anyone else knew--”
“I know. I promise, I won’t tell anyone.”
“Okay, good. So now, we must work quickly. The virus will find us and wipe us out. The Empire is sure to destabilize in a matter of months. But I do need a favor.”
Lia laid a hand over Corvan’s own. “Anything. Just name it.”
“Keep my stepsister out of my hair.”
Lia rolled her eyes. “Corvan, that’s the one thing I’m not sure I can do.”
“Please Lia. Do it. She’s been so unstable lately. I promised my mother I would care for her. She gets into her moods and she’s unpredictable. A few months ago, she got drunk and high on some neurogenic drug and trashed my lab. It set me back at least a year.”
“She’s rude--,” Lia told him.
“She’s misunderstood,” he interrupted.
“Corvan, how can I keep her busy and out of your hair when I’m just an AI?”
“You’re human! You’re not just an AI. Surely you can keep her entertained long enough for me to synthesize a possible cure using the nanites I injected you with. Already I can tell it’s working. Analyzing their progress shows that they are evolving, possibly becoming more sensitive to conditions in a human cell. I must continue this research. And the best way to do this is for you to distract her.”
“What about Mrs. Danvers or Davis?” Lia asked in a final attempt to dissuade him.
“They’ve tried. She’s not responsive to them. And when Davis tried to corral her, she gave him the slip and ended up nearly getting kidnapped on Beta-V.”
“I don’t know Corvan. She’s a bit—,”
“I know she’s a bit much, but she’s been hurt badly by circumstances. She really is a good person. Give her a chance. And besides, the sooner I get this research completed, the sooner we find a cure, and the sooner we retrieve your body.”
Lia sighed. “Fine. But I don’t have to like this.”
Corvan grinned and pressed a kiss to her cheek. “You won’t regret it.”
Lia rolled her eyes and Corvan grinned even more broadly. “She’s in the library right now. She usually goes there every day at about this time. Go talk to her. Get to know her. Keep her occupied.”
Lia trudged toward the elevator and looked back at Corvan who waggled his fingers and winked. Lia punched the button and found herself back on the main floor. She stepped out of the elevator and wondered about briefly before running into Ms. Tran. She adjusted her glasses and looked at Lia curiously.
“Funny seeing you here. Alone. Unsupervised,” she said.
“I am looking for the library.”
“Hm. That’s strange. Isn’t your brain just one big library”
Lia didn’t know how to respond. Instead, she simply stared at Ms. Tran until it was clear the woman was uncomfortable. Ms. Tran cleared her throat and looked away.
“Yes, well. The library is down that hall there to your right.”
“Thank you,” Lia said and Ms. Tran nodded, scurrying away quickly. Lia did as Ms. Tran instructed and found herself in the beautifully appointed library. It had shelves that reached from the floor to the ceiling and each shelf was filled with what seemed to be books of every type. Lia paused in awe and then walked over to a shelf. She fingered a book lovingly and read the spine. It was a book on anti-matter. Lia grinned. Her mother had taught her how to read before she was killed long ago. Lia had kept up the studies and secretly read everything she could get her hands on. Most Constants couldn’t read, and those that did, only read the most basic things, like recipes or passages from a prayer book. Once, when an Empire trained soldier visited the Probity with his young son, Lia had committed the one and only crime she knew she was truly guilty of—she stole the young boy’s primer. She had devoured that book from cover to cover, learning the foundations of reading and language.
Over the course of the next few years, Lia often read what she could, and soon she was quite literate. She continued touching the various books and wistfully thinking about the knowledge within them. She knew that with her powerful new brain she could uncover nearly anything, but there was something magical about being able to touch a book, open it and discover its secrets.
“A robot that reads. That’s interesting,” a voice said behind her and she turned to see Rhyssa.
“I was—curious,” Lia said and then inwardly cursed. Machines didn’t have the capacity to be curious.
“Hmph,” Rhyssa said as she absentmindedly palmed an apple. She put the apple up to her mouth and took a bite. She walked close to Lia and examined her, her breath making the hair fan around her face. Rhyssa stepped back and then took another bite of the apple. She watched Lia a moment and then extended the apple to her.
“Take a bite.”
Lia furrowed her brow, trying to decide what the proper response should be. She leaned forward and took a bite. The apple was the sweetest she’d ever tasted. She tried hard to look impassive and simply stared at Rhyssa as she chewed.
“Figures. Machines eat but they don’t enjoy anything. Is there really even a consciousness in there? You say you were curious, but isn’t that really just a result of programming that leads you to develop frameworks for dealing with humans and the world?”
Lia said nothing and Rhyssa walked around her a bit, and then stopped before her once more.
“I wonder what it’s like to be you. To not feel, to not give a shit if the world burns. To survive it even and not even have the sense of self to be grateful,” Rhyssa remarked and then traipsed over to a shelf.
“I used to play like I was an android when my stepmother was alive. Before—before things happened. She was nice. She raised me like her ow
n and I was so shitty to her.” Rhyssa turned and Lia could see tears in her eyes. “I was just the worst kind of child you know? Just horrible. I never wanted to go to my lessons. I hated my space travel teacher so I would steal the ship and do crazy pranks. I was a mess. And she loved me. She tore down my walls and made me feel human again. Can you understand what that’s like, to want to feel human again after feeling so empty?”
Lia stood listening, feelings of empathy and understanding running through her. Rhyssa didn’t know it, but Lia understood that concept well, and had struggled with it since awakening into a new body.
“Just when I thought I could have a mother again, have someone who adored me for just—being me—my father took her. Betrayed her. Gave her to the goddamn Empire! Saying she was, “encouraging the dissemination of laziness,” by helping the poor around here with food and water.”
“She still lives?”
Rhyssa sniffled and shook her head. “No. Of course not. The Empire makes sure that people who disappear stay that way, usually by killing them off. Yeah, the official story is that she was being “retrained,” and decided to stay and learn the ways of the Empire, but I know that’s not true. She’s dead.”
“She—she may still live,” Lia said, trying to offer some small semblance of comfort.
“It’s been almost ten years now. She’s long dead. You know, I once saw a holovid about how great the Empire is and how we’ve all got it good and everyone else outside our little circle are just jealous of us. It was in a little class I had on society or something. We were learning some stupid things like cooking and such and I just remember watching the holovid and thinking how pointless it was. My teacher at the time was a real Empire fan, I mean, she actually believed the stuff they told her. But she was too smart for her own good. She’d build things on her own time, dreamed about getting into some kind of Empire led program to prove her loyalty. But I knew—just knew she was going to be taken. Her kind of spirit and exuberance just didn’t make sense in a place like the Empire. So, one day, she didn’t come to class. And the next day, she didn’t again either. And by the third day, I knew it. They’d killed her. Not because she was disloyal or doing anything against the rules, but because she was special.”