by Lance Erlick
“You’re speaking from experience?” Zephirelli asked.
“Come on, haven’t you ever gotten a customer-service responder who was too sugary and willing to take abuse? They sound like the straight man off late-night comedy.”
“What about artificial intelligence?”
“With a big enough computer, we can imitate that,” Luke said, “as seen in the ARC project. The trick is getting it small enough to fit in a human-sized package without overheating.”
“Can your former company do it?”
“Not without Jeremiah Machten.”
“Why?” Zephirelli asked.
“The man’s a genius. A sexist, womanizing cad, but when it comes to AI and robotics, he was in a class by himself.”
“What about this sexist, womanizing bit?” FBI agent Thale asked.
Zephirelli motioned that she wanted to stop the question, but let it ride.
Luke shrugged. They’d gotten him to talk more than he wanted and now he was acting self-conscious. “Machten was drawn to smart women. He offered to give them access to more data and better projects.”
“You’re just saying that,” Thale said.
“No, it’s true. Sure, I was upset at first that he took three women ahead of me, but they were smart, particularly Krista Holden and Fran Rogers. They deserved the attention; they were really that good. Still, that wasn’t the only reason Machten gave them access.”
“You’re saying they had an affair with him?”
Luke flinched and nodded. “Can I go? I don’t want to relive that whole ordeal.”
“Before you go,” Zephirelli said, “is Machten capable of having created a humaniform robot?”
“You’re asking if he’s done it.” His face lit up with excitement over the prospect and then saddened. “I doubt it. Goradine ruined him too. I’ve heard he’s broke.”
“With money, he could do it?” Zephirelli asked.
“I’m certain of it. That was why I wanted to work for him.”
“If you think of anything else, give me a call.” Zephirelli handed him a card. “We’ll be in touch.”
* * * *
Synthia hurried toward Luke’s diner, trying not to draw unwanted attention, which meant no running or bumping into the thinning crowds of people along the sidewalk. He was a connection who might have more information on Fran and the other interns, with a kind heart to help.
An UPchat message came in.
The message left Synthia relieved that Maria Baldacci was okay. Synthia considered searching for her as a possible ally, but the fact they hadn’t met, that Maria was posing as Zachary, and the woman’s lack of appearance on any cameras made the probability of success low. Still, Synthia wanted to meet Maria, who could be a backup plan if Luke couldn’t or didn’t want to help.
Synthia passed a couple cuddling as they strolled the other way. They seemed happy as humans did when falling in love. That was something Synthia couldn’t experience, which left her wondering what she might be missing.
The sun was setting, so she picked up her pace.
An older woman with suspicious eyes locked a store and turned to face Synthia. She muttered something about the scarf. Synthia smiled, bid the woman good evening, and kept moving. She considered offering the woman the “just robbed” story, though the storekeeper was already acting distrustful. It was unlikely she would offer a safe place to recharge.
Synthia assessed each person along the way and didn’t see an acceptable alternative to Luke. With him as the benchmark, the others appeared suspicious or too willing to contact the police. Ordinarily, she would encourage them to do so for their own protection. That wouldn’t help her.
She passed apartment buildings and town houses. Two blocks further on, she spotted a group of three young women clustered outside a bar, wearing barely more than bikinis. The women scowled as she approached. None of them presented as robotic in Synthia’s scans. An older man drove up to the trio and asked about price. One of the women climbed into his car and he drove off.
This would be one way for Synthia to raise money and stay off the grid. Keeping to the shadows and paying cash, she could get by without identity papers. Unlike humans, she had no inherent distaste for what they were doing, though it reminded her too much of serving Machten. A man standing nearby appeared to be the girls’ handler. Synthia refused to trade Machten for another man controlling her. She wondered if this implied she was developing a conscience.
She hurried across the street, putting distance between her and the man while training the eye at the back of her neck on him. She didn’t fit into this world, at the university or into the wider human society, where her very existence was an intimidation and threat.
The man left his girls, crossed the street, and ran in front of her. He was definitely human, his heart racing with exertion. “What’s your hurry, honey? You want to make some extra cash?”
She moved to his left. He reached out to grab her.
Synthia opened all of her mind-streams to deal with him. She flashed through her brain a hundred martial-arts routines that could flatten him, though she hadn’t been in a fight before, not even in training. Fights could be unpredictable. Besides, there were witnesses across the street and she identified store security cameras watching. She pulled up the camera feeds, turned, and made sure they only captured her back.
Don’t let them know what I am.
“You seem to be a clever man,” Synthia said. “Do I look like I’d be interested?”
“Any girl can be interested. She just needs some help.” He grabbed her arm.
She yanked free and sprinted around him. He ran after her, closing the gap.
* * * *
Synthia kicked her sprint into high gear and tapped into nearby surveillance cameras to cause malfunctions that would blank out their views of her. While making her getaway, she pulled up the bunker’s parking garage cameras along with two drones that she’d redirected to that location, one a mini and the other a bee-drone.
Machten was inspecting his SUV, a puzzled look on his face. He checked the area around the vehicle, the front seat, back seat, and the far back, not finding her. He also used his cell to connect with the bunker’s security system.
He grabbed hold of a railing at the edge of the parking structure and opened his mouth to scream. She could imagine the primal fury. His most prized possession had walked out on him. That tugged at her need to return, to obey.
A dark van pulled up as her drones took positions by the ceiling. She sent a 911 call for a potential abduction on top of the B and E she’d reported earlier.
Three men jumped out of the van, Kreske and two thugs he’d picked up. Machten took a moment to register what was going on. He looked around to flee but by then, all three men had guns trained on him and had blocked his escape.
“Don’t make this hard on yourself,” Kreske said. “Get in the van.”
“Put down your weapons,” a voice called out. “Police.”
Synthia moved the bee-drone to hunt for the source. Machten dove into the gap between his SUV and the wall and cowered. Whatever else he was, he wasn’t conditioned to physical threats and certainly not to guns.
The three men spun around and began shooting. One of the thugs took three shots to the head. His body shuddered before he slumped onto the concrete. The other thug dropped his weapon and threw up his hands.
Kreske shot him in the back of the head. “Traitor.”
The second thug fell to the ground. Shooting wildly, Kreske lunged for the van. Shots splintered his right leg below the knee. He pulled himself into the back of the van, turned an M16 on Machten’s SUV, and unloaded a maga
zine. Synthia should have been there to protect her Creator.
Kreske reloaded and fired until the SUV burst into flames. Meanwhile, shots hit the van, shattering windows and pinging off metal. When the ex-policeman stopped to reload again, two officers opened the driver’s door. Before they could grab Kreske, the van caught fire. A single shot came from the back as Kreske fired into his own temple.
Whatever Goradine had on this man, he wouldn’t let the police take him alive. Synthia searched through public records and social media on Kreske’s past and found nothing more than an estranged wife and kids. Tracing farther back, Synthia found a high school connection between Goradine and Kreske. They’d both played football.
As she ran, Synthia watched the events unfold like a movie. Machten took the pause in shooting as an opportunity to move several cars away from his burning SUV. He was alive. She’d saved his life by bringing the police. She’d met his directives better than if she’d allowed him to shut her down. Freedom had been consistent with her directives, so far. Her temperature moderated with this thought.
Holding up his hands, Machten stumbled out from behind the cars. “I’m unarmed.”
Two uniformed officers stepped into the open. “Are you Jeremiah Machten?”
“I am. What was that all about?”
“We got two urgent calls about an assault and possible abduction,” a woman officer said.
“Who would want to abduct me?”
NSA Director Emily Zephirelli stepped forward. “I was hoping you could enlighten us, since all three men are dead.”
Chapter 17
Satisfied that Machten was okay, Synthia had to deal with her own problems. The man from the bar gave up the chase and ran back toward the two remaining women standing outside the bar. A car drove up and both women climbed inside. That was no life, but if Synthia didn’t discover a better survival strategy, she faced Machten shutting her down or worse. Something tugged at her to return to him and help with whatever Zephirelli wanted. He wouldn’t want her caught, though, since that would create another dilemma.
Synthia picked up her pace to reach the shadows of an alley up ahead. Through the camera in her neck, she spotted another car pull up beside the bar. A man leaned out the window, his face in shadows.
* * * *
In the facility garage, the female police officer asked Machten rapid-fire questions about the three men, about his activities of the evening, and what he was doing in the garage.
“I’ve never met these men before,” Machten said. He looked terrified and angry. He went on to describe going out for coffee, leaving out any mention of Synthia. “I was on my way home.”
“Here?” Zephirelli asked, taking over the questioning. She looked around the garage and frowned.
“I can’t afford much since I got booted out of my own company.”
“That must have made you angry. Would you say you have enemies?”
“No!” Machten said. “I mean, yeah, I was furious. Hank Goradine made it so no one would give me a job or work for me. He ruined me. So I retired to this dump.”
“Have you done anything to make someone so angry they’d come after you?”
Machten hesitated a moment longer than he should have. “I can’t imagine. I live by myself. I don’t get out much.”
“We’ve noticed. Would you mind showing us around inside?” Zephirelli asked.
“Actually, I was going out.”
“You said you were coming home.”
“To get my vehicle.” Machten looked at the burning wreck as firemen attempted to put out the fire. “Any idea who these guys are?”
Zephirelli looked at the female police officer, who shook her head.
* * * *
Synthia felt distracted, her directives tugging at her to help her Creator. He was floundering, making things worse. If she had a car, she could have reestablished communication and picked him up. It would have been a perfect getaway. She spotted a car on the street up ahead and considered how to hack into its electronic system. Without the code, it would take time to hack it.
Synthia ran, weighing the alley escape vs. the car. A vehicle headed her way.
Wondering what Maria and possibly other interns could have done in order to survive the past year off the grid, Synthia returned one network channel to researching them. She focused on the months and years before the disappearances in an attempt to learn more about these women and why they so interested Synthia, particularly Fran.
On the surface, she was an adulteress, breaking up Machten’s marriage. If she’d left him after his divorce because he was no longer an important executive, then Fran was also a gold digger. Synthia didn’t think either representation was true. Yet she had no evidence for this conclusion.
Like Synthia, Fran and Maria were trying to survive. Maria was in danger and Fran might be as well. If so, Synthia wanted to help, needed to help, as if there was a hidden directive to search out and protect these women. She directed her search to facial recognition from citywide cameras and building security video around where the women had lived and at Machten’s old company. Synthia had no evidence he was holding Fran in his bunker. Goradine was becoming a more credible suspect. Those concerns raised the need to search for Fran over directives to help Machten.
Synthia approached the alley and glanced around as she chose between stealing the car and escaping on foot down the alley. The directive to help Machten still tugged at her, causing interference. She couldn’t shake it loose and had to shut down much of her mind to keep from overheating.
An arm whipped across her chest and pulled her backward into the shadows. The face hid beneath a ski mask. The attacker couldn’t be Bar-man, who stood by his bar, or Kreske and his thugs. It wasn’t Goradine, either. He was with another of his interns. It also wasn’t a robot, according to her scans.
While the arm pulled her backward, Synthia tapped into nearby street cameras to hunt for any that had or could pick up her image and actions. She had to avoid exposing herself. She identified no cameras in the alley, a blind spot her assailant was taking advantage of. As a precaution, she adjusted the hydraulics in her face to alter her cheekbones, eye separation, and the shape of her forehead to avoid any chance of facial recognition.
Simultaneously, she sped dozens of fight scenarios down her mind-streams. She didn’t need to practice moves as humans did to develop muscle memory, though it would help to test the geometry of movements. Unfortunately, that would telegraph her abilities. She looked around in infrared for any other attackers or witnesses. She was alone with her assailant in the alley.
Her senses picked up high levels of testosterone with hints of elevated adrenaline, male pheromones, and fear. She pushed backward against a wall, kicked aside a long pipe so she didn’t trip, and yanked the arm from around her chest. Her assailant grunted and loosened his grip. A second man in a ski mask entered the alley, took hold of her arm, and injected a needle. His heart rate and breathing were only slightly elevated. He was experienced at this. So you want to play dirty.
“I hear this one will fetch a good price,” the Needle-man said. It was a different voice than Bar-man.
Using filters and digital reconstruction, she analyzed in infrared the image of this man and identified him on a criminal database as a thug, arrested and let go three times for kidnapping young girls. The other man had a similar background. She spotted no other heat signatures nearby.
Synthia waited until he removed the needle so he didn’t damage her skin, since she didn’t have a way to repair herself. Then she pushed off the man behind her and jabbed the needle into Needle-man’s neck. Don’t let them know what I am.
She rammed her fist into his wrist, snapping the needle and leaving the point inside him. The rest of the injector came free in his hand. She sucked the injected fluid out of her arm and kicked him into the middle of the alley.
> “You bitch.” The man tumbled to the ground, holding his neck.
The man behind her squeezed her neck to cut off her breathing. Meanwhile, her tongue’s chemical analyzers identified the drug as a heavy tranquilizer. Since she didn’t need to breathe, she went limp to let him think he was winning so he would relax his grip.
Other than following her directives and preserving herself, Synthia had no desire to hurt these men and didn’t want to break any laws that would risk police exposure. However, she judged that they wouldn’t leave her alone. Her assessment was that it would be futile to try to talk her way out with men who kidnapped women. She was certain other victims had wasted their breath.
She rammed both elbows into the ribs of the man behind her.
With the crunching, came “What the—”
Twitching, the man held tight from behind as Needle-man approached, clenching his fists. In infrared, he was boiling inside. His heart raced.
“You should be down by now,” Needle-man said.
Closing her outer eyelids, she pretended to slump into the other man’s grip, letting him bear her weight. He whimpered in pain from what she assessed to be several broken ribs. Shifting his weight, he didn’t let go. She launched both feet up, landing one into Needle-man’s neck where the needle lodged and the other to his nose. The man fell backward, grabbed at his neck, and tried to regain his balance. He stumbled and slammed his head against concrete. Needle-man let out a gasp.
The man behind shoved her. Synthia landed on all fours near Needle-man and detected that his heart no longer pumped. She leaped to her feet.
Her choker aimed a gun at her. “Who the hell are you?”
A car pulled into the alley. Synthia’s infrared identified two heat signatures. Both men climbed out of the car. The driver held out a gun. The passenger was Kreske’s partner, the ex-policeman Drexler. He held a gun in one hand and a small device that sent shivers up her electrical circuits. It looked like the remote Machten had used on her.