by Lance Erlick
“I didn’t mean to bring up unpleasant memories,” she said. She added more network channels to search street cameras and other video on Luke’s history for anything she’d missed during her earlier search.
He fidgeted while stealing glances her way. She concluded that he didn’t have Asperger’s syndrome, though perhaps he’d accumulated enough bad experiences growing up that he struggled to connect, at least with girls.
That tugged at her more than expected. He was another soul who struggled to fit into this world. Those weren’t her thoughts, yet she couldn’t separate them from her consciousness. Indeed, she was having all sorts of “feelings” she was not designed to have, as if someone other than Machten was tampering with her.
* * * *
Synthia picked up crime-scene talk on her monitoring of police band and zeroed in on Detective Marcy Malloy just outside the police station, addressing her partner. “What do you mean? There are no fingerprints or DNA on the guns other than from the dead owners? Drexler and his partner shot each other? Just like that?”
“If there was a fifth person in the alley,” her partner said, “he or she didn’t leave fingerprints or DNA on the guns, the car, or the dead men.”
“What about nearby cameras?” Malloy asked.
“We pulled all of the footage from the street cameras. No cameras point toward the middle or back of the alley. One video shows a woman in a blue scarf entering the alley, followed by a man on foot and then the two in the car. The fourth man must have already been in the alley.”
“So the cameras show no details of what happened?” Malloy asked.
“The only video we have shows an arm emerging from the shadows and the woman dragged backward into the alley. No faces. Even hers isn’t clear. Two of the men had long rap sheets for kidnapping and assault. The men in the car interrupted whatever was going down. Right now we don’t know if they were helping the woman or if the woman used that opportunity to escape. We’ve found no connection between the two pairs of men.”
“Any facial recognition on the woman?” the detective asked.
“Only the back of her head,” her partner said. “And the blue scarf.”
“How is it possible the scarf woman left no DNA? A man grabbed her. Even if she didn’t resist, there would be a hair or something.”
“I don’t know.”
“Find her,” Malloy said. “She may be our only witness and a link into what Goradine and Machten are up to.”
Chapter 20
With police hunting for her, Synthia needed to stay off the streets. She needed Luke to let her stay. “I’m a good listener,” she said from her seat on his sofa. It saddened her that over the past year social media posts indicated he’d only had two dates, one each with different women. “If you want to talk, that is.”
“Her name was Krista,” Luke said. He scooted back on the coffee table, knocking a stack of papers on the floor. He made no attempt to pick them up.
Synthia scanned social media and public camera footage around the neighborhood for women named Krista that he might have known. “You were close?”
Luke nodded. “When I saw you at Constant Connection, I thought you were her ghost come back to haunt me for not helping her.”
“Help her how?” Synthia asked, leaning closer.
“Krista Holden worked for the company,” Luke said. His eyes teared up. He blinked and wiped them.
Synthia had so focused on the interns with Machten that she was stunned to think of Luke with Krista. Synthia had overlooked the connection by assuming their relationship at the company was professional, based on Krista’s focus on work and Luke’s reticence. Her downloaded security video from Machten’s old company showed a few meetings between Luke and Krista, but no hint of a relationship. If they’d dated, they’d been very careful, leaving no social media clues, either.
“You were in love with her?” Synthia asked.
Luke nodded. “Other than you, she was the only other person to take an interest.”
“And you thought I was her?”
He shrugged. “The eyes. I swear you have her eyes. The curl of your mouth. The slope of your cheeks.” He got up and moved away. “I’m sorry. This has to sound crazy to you. I’m not trying to hit on you or anything.”
“What was she like?” Synthia asked, to keep him from tossing her out. She was also curious about why she reminded him of Krista, one of the interns who had disappeared.
His face lit up. “Smartest girl I’ve ever met.” He sat on the coffee table. “Except maybe you. You seem very smart. I’m sorry. You don’t want to hear about another girl.”
“I do. She was important to you and I like you.”
“You do?” He swallowed hard and took a deep breath. “We helped each other out on coding problems. She was very good, but said it helped to talk things through with someone who didn’t think girls were dumb. Then I learned she was sleeping with Dr. Machten.”
“She was his mistress?” Genuinely surprised, Synthia compiled all of the information she could on Krista and Machten to compare to what she’d gathered on Krista and Luke. “Machten was married, wasn’t he?”
Luke nodded. “His wife divorced him and the company fired him about the same time that Krista vanished without explanation.”
That gave Synthia pause. Luke had motive for revenge. He still seemed distraught over Krista breaking his heart. Synthia eyed the exits, the front door and a balcony, in case she needed a quick getaway. She also set a network channel to monitor the exterior cameras and pulled two of her bee-drone cameras to this area. “It must have hurt for Krista to betray you.”
“Like a punch to the stomach.” Luke squirmed in his seat. “I thought she wanted me. We shared ideas, but I guess she was only using me.”
“What makes you say that?”
“Increasingly, she had to leave on a moment’s notice, making all sorts of excuses. When I confronted her, she admitted what she’d done. She acted relieved to be able to tell me. She told me she wanted to leave him and the company, but couldn’t get up the nerve on account of the work we were doing. Machten let her do much more than me in exchange for her being with him. She didn’t want the work to end.”
“She could have left the company for a competitor, couldn’t she?” Synthia asked.
Luke’s eyes moistened. “She swore she would. Then she broke up with me. Not even in person. Who sends a text to break up? She had me send her stuff to a PO address in Madison. Then she went off the grid, vanished into thin air. I drove up that way and hunted for weeks without finding a trace of her.”
“It wasn’t anything you did. I’m sure of that.”
“Thanks,” Luke said, “but that doesn’t make the pain go away.”
“Didn’t two other interns vanish about the same time?”
Luke’s dried his eyes. “Fran Rogers and Maria Baldacci. There was talk that they were sleeping with Machten. That wouldn’t surprise me. But Krista? She made fun of them for selling their bodies to that bastard. She swore she would never do that. Then she did.”
“That must have been the worst betrayal.”
He nodded. “I thought we were soul mates. I told her so and she said the same back at me.” He forced a smile, but it didn’t hold.
“Any idea what happened to Fran or Maria?”
“Goradine fired me around that time and made sure I’d never work in the industry again. He made me a pariah, so none of my former coworkers would even talk to me. I’m sure someone inside knows.”
“Could they have all been fired because they were close to Machten when he was ousted?” Synthia asked.
“I guess, but I wasn’t close to him and they pushed me out.”
“Was Machten’s firing justified?” Synthia asked to get to one of her concerns.
Luke stared at her. “You know I’m not suppo
sed to talk about all that.”
“I’m sorry. You’re in pain and I’d like to understand. I really like you and I’m certain none of it was your fault.”
“Thanks for that.” He picked up his glass, took a sip, and put it down. Then his hands began to tremble. “I don’t claim to understand the business side. Machten was pushing cutting-edge work and letting me and the other interns participate. Maybe they couldn’t make a profit at what he was doing, but we were having fun and learning a lot.”
“Was Machten stealing from the company?”
“He worked in our lab and also in his own basement, as he called it. His entire life was developing androids. Every cent he had went into that, which I guess irritated his wife. In addition, he chased women, but I didn’t see him as a thief.”
Synthia reached out to touch Luke’s hands with the idea of putting him at ease, but he withdrew and so did she. “What do you think happened to Krista? Where could she have gone?”
He seemed distracted for a moment, deep in thought. He looked up. “There was no word that she’d quit or been fired, but she stopped coming into work. She refused my calls and didn’t return any of my messages. When I tried to see her at home, she told me, through a locked door, not to make a scene. Middle of the next week, Krista disappeared.”
“That’s terrible,” Synthia said.
“It had to be something Machten did. The last time I saw her, getting into his car, she looked emaciated as if she hadn’t eaten in weeks. She wouldn’t even look my way. That was the day Krista vanished.”
“Machten was the last one to see her alive?”
Luke shrugged. “The last I saw.”
The thought of Krista’s potential demise sent shivers of electronic pain through Synthia’s system, real pain that caused her to wince. The ambiguity of the intern disappearances had allowed Synthia to hope she might meet the women thriving somewhere or captured by obscure forces on the dark web, where a rescue would be called for. An emaciated Krista vanishing into Machten’s clutches made the woman’s pain more real.
“Is Machten capable of hurting Krista?” Synthia asked.
“I don’t know. I’ve thought about this for a year now and can’t make any sense of it. Then you waltz in, acting as friendly as she did. It’s unnerving.”
That alarmed Synthia. “I’ll stop, then. You’ve been too nice for me to cause you grief.”
“I’ve never seen any evidence of Machten being violent or abusive, other than taking Krista from me.”
“What about the other interns, Fran and Maria? Could he have hurt them?”
“It would make more sense to ask if Hank Goradine would,” Luke said. “He’s a vindictive bastard.”
“Because he fired you?”
“He purged the company of anyone he suspected of siding with Machten. He made sure none could work in the industry again. I’m sure that damaged the company’s research program, setting back their android development, but Goradine didn’t care. It was all about control and loyalty.”
“If he hurt the interns, how would he do it?” Synthia asked.
“You sound just like Krista. She could be a real pit bull when she latched onto something.”
“Really? So you still think I’m her?”
Luke stared into her eyes. “Either that or our meeting is someone’s sick joke. To answer your question, Goradine was hell-bent on making Machten fail. It wouldn’t surprise me if he killed all three interns.”
This alarmed Synthia. It would deny her ever meeting them. On the other hand, it was consistent with him sending Kreske and Drexler to get Machten and her.
She pried deeper into public records and social media on Krista Holden, comparing images of Krista with her auburn hair to her own face—at least the one she’d adopted the day she’d met Luke. The similarities couldn’t have been a coincidence. Machten had given her the facial profile for that day. Was he mocking Luke? That made no sense. She had softened the image a bit before Luke had appeared, but only according to pre-programmed guidelines. If her Creator hadn’t given her that face, then who had?
“Do you ever wonder where Krista is today?” Synthia asked.
“All the time. I hope she started a new life and found someone to love her the way I did.”
Synthia smiled. “Maybe we could find Krista, Fran, and Maria together.” As she said this, memories downloaded of all three interns, one by one.
Krista had found Luke a useful sounding board for her work, willing to listen to her for hours on any topic. Fran saw Luke as naive about how the world worked and too easily sidetracked from pursuing his career goals. That made him an ideal male coworker, since he was not trying to compete with her. Maria considered Luke safe, too afraid of girls to make her uncomfortable around him. In addition, she determined he would be a useful ally to counter Fran, though he refused to weigh in on the actual competition. Synthia couldn’t pinpoint where this had come from, except perhaps that Machten had downloaded data from his interns as part of training Synthia.
“We could start by figuring out where Krista might have gone,” Synthia said.
Luke’s eyes teared up. “I’ve already tried. I don’t think I can do it again.”
“If you and Krista had stayed together, where would you have gone?” Synthia asked.
“Gone?”
“Like a honeymoon, a place to call your own.”
“I wanted to show her the Rockies,” he said. “She’d never been. Pikes Peak, to be exact. There’s a nice restaurant, something I could give her that no one else had.” He gazed at Synthia for a long time; his heart rate quickened. He took her hand and kissed it. Then he stood and pulled her up next to him to where she felt his hot breath on her forehead. She was running warm, yet his breath on her skin was welcome as Machten’s never was.
He let go and pulled away. “I’d better go before I get carried away. You remind me so much of Krista it brings up old feelings. She was the only other woman I could feel comfortable with. I’m sorry; that sounds insensitive.”
Synthia realized she’d tweaked her appearance even more in order to completely mimic Krista’s looks and mannerisms. She must have automatically done that to ensure that he would let her stay. Yet that was not a satisfactory answer.
Another intern memory appeared, more as data than a video. Luke had kissed Krista’s hand and pulled her to him. She’d pretended not to be interested, bringing up some lame comment about work. He pulled away and sulked as he was doing now. Not letting him off that easily, she teased him in a flirtatious way. When he returned to her, her resistance mellowed, yet she still interrupted his advances. On the third attempt, she let him kiss her. Synthia couldn’t decide if this was her social-psychology module adapting to the situation or data on Luke’s behavior.
“You’re the sweetest boy I’ve ever met,” Synthia said. The truth. “I’m so glad we met.” She gave him a sad, vulnerable smile.
His breath caught. He held her hands and squeezed. “You know I’m crazy about you.” He gazed into her eyes, his pupils fully dilated. His heart raced, skipped a beat, and beat harder.
He seemed transported back into his past. Synthia went along with him. “Are you crazy enough to run away with me?” she asked. She gave him as flirtatious a look as she could conjure and leaned toward him.
“In a heartbeat.” He inched closer. “Where would we go? When?”
“How about now?”
Synthia took him in her arms and they embraced.
He hesitated, but his resistance melted. “Krista, my soul mate.”
Luke kissed her for real this time, holding her so close she thought he would mash their bodies together. She liked it more than she’d imagined possible. She teased him. “Are you sure you’ll respect me in the morning?”
He cupped the back of her neck and kissed her. “I always do.” He closed his
eyes and kissed her again. “You’re the only woman for me.”
She pulled away. “You sure you don’t want to wait?”
“I’m in love with you, Krista. Let’s go away and start a life together, just you and me.”
“I’d love that.”
They made love.
Afterwards, as Luke lay quietly beside her, the police radio crackled in Synthia’s head. “I think we have a lead on the woman with the blue scarf.”
Chapter 21
In the dark, there was no discolored ceiling for Synthia to stare at. Her Creator was not tinkering with her, trying to enhance her performance while limiting her abilities.
She would need to sort out what to do about the police closing in on her, but until she could determine what they knew and how to respond, she was satisfied to stay with Luke. She felt safe. It was a sentiment she could not account for as part of her android design, an adaptation or even an emergent behavior. One thing was clear. She had no desire to return to Machten.
Synthia couldn’t decide which part of the evening had been more amazing. She’d actually slept with someone other than Machten. She’d done it because she wanted to and had enjoyed the experience for the first time. Either that or she’d enjoyed Krista’s recollection of it.
Somehow, Synthia had acquired memories of all three female interns that went beyond data. The information appeared as personal recollections, including feelings that Machten must have found a way to capture and then hide from Synthia. Why they hadn’t appeared before and did now must have had something to do with meeting Luke. Of particular note, most of the reminiscences pertained to Krista.
These new thoughts blended together with Synthia’s own experiences to a level of satisfaction that felt new and fresh. Particularly rewarding to her was that she’d made Luke happy for Krista. The last thing he’d said in the heat of the moment was, “I love you, Krista.” She had wanted him to be happy. She’d sold herself to Machten for the work, but she loved Luke. This new information bubbled up from remote data-chips inside. Despite this new data, Synthia couldn’t unlock what had happened to Krista the person. She kept hunting.