Reborn

by Lance Erlick

  “It’s my job to protect you,” Synthia said. “You’re engaged in something that could cause you harm. I’m merely doing my job.”

  Machten parked, raised his finger to scold her, and grinned. “Yes, protecting me is part of your job. That means you must accompany me. Adopt the plain-Jane face, style GR14B.”

  “Any particular reason we’re using that face?”

  “Just do it.”

  She adjusted the hydraulics in her face to match his specifications, a forgettable face with everywoman features blended from facial recognition software. “Any particular personality traits I should adopt?”

  “Plain, obedient, nondescript. Act invisible.”

  “I don’t believe you’ve given me invisibility. Perhaps you should have provided chameleon characteristics.”

  “And make it harder for me to find you? I think not.”

  Synthia finished her adjustments and turned to him. “Will this do?”

  “You’re a girl of many talents. That’s perfect, as are you.” He patted her hand and squeezed tight to assert his dominance.

  She felt revulsion at his touch, a recollection of him touching Krista in a way she hadn’t appreciated. He’d used her as he was using his creation. Synthia plastered a programmed smile on her face and plotted her next move.

  Machten led her around the corner and into the bank. She identified all of the cameras on the street and inside. She accessed their feeds to keep an eye on potential dangers. She made sure to give them either the back of her head or an oblique angle of a plain face so they didn’t get a straight-on facial view, in case her hydraulic manipulation wasn’t convincing enough.

  She scanned all of the faces in the bank, human, and downloaded social media and public record data on all except two that her software couldn’t recognize. The ones she identified were the usual mix of Friday midday customers for this neighborhood. She followed Machten to the counter and dug deeper into records on the two men.

  The middle-aged woman behind the counter smiled at Machten, a forced smile. Expanded data search showed that she’d fought with her husband that morning in a public place, a coffee shop near their home with cameras. She’d been crying. Now her adrenaline levels elevated with the presence of a man who reminded her of the morning’s pain, Machten. He seemed oblivious, lacking the social recognition skills he’d programmed into his creation.

  Synthia smiled at the woman. “It’s a wonderful day outside. It’s a shame we’re both forced to spend it indoors.”

  The teller gave a genuine smile and her blood pressure dropped. “Yeah, it always rains on my days off.”

  Machten asked for six certified checks, each below the federal notification hurdle. Then he asked the woman to initiate a wire transfer.

  Doing this in person with all of the cameras was unnecessary. Synthia considered Machten as more cautious than this, but he seemed desperate, or at least obsessed, to touch his money, even if only in paper form.

  As she waited, Synthia used her network channels to scan nationwide databases for information on the two men lingering across the lobby. Synthia also hacked an internal police security system to watch Luke sweating in an interrogation room with Detective Malloy. He wasn’t looking good.

  * * * *

  Luke’s eyes were puffy and red. Synthia had wounded him. She experienced twinges of anguish.

  “The woman at the diner,” Detective Malloy said, standing over Luke. “What’s her name?”

  “I don’t know,” Luke said. His neck gleamed in sweat.

  The detective paced, shaking her head. “You took her home with you and didn’t get her name? They have labels for that.”

  “She pretended to be my old girlfriend, Krista Holden.”

  “Okay, that’s a start. Krista Holden.” The detective wrote on her tablet. “Tell me about her.”

  “The woman last night had the look. I convinced myself that Krista was back, that it was her.”

  “Okay, where is Krista now?”

  “She vanished a year ago, just disappeared,” Luke said. He wiped his hand across his neck and then rubbed his hands. “When that woman sat across from me last night, I wanted to believe. I wanted to pick up where we’d left off. At my place, when I mentioned Krista, the woman ran. She didn’t want me talking about another girl.”

  “Then you ran after her?”

  “No. I was upset that she’d deceived me.”

  “Did she say why she did it?” Detective Malloy asked.

  Luke shook his head. “It was weird. She knew things about Krista.”

  “You received a call from a burner phone before we arrived at your apartment.”

  “She called to beg my forgiveness. She wanted to say good-bye without cops around.” “She told you that?” Malloy asked.

  “Yeah. I went to meet her. She didn’t show.”

  “Why were you running from the police?”

  Luke hung his head. He wasn’t handling this well. “She was afraid of a former boyfriend. She said he had connections with cops. I didn’t want to get beat up or arrested for being with her.”

  “Who was this boyfriend?”

  “She didn’t say, and I was too upset to ask. As I said, I was on a high that I was getting another chance with Krista.”

  Detective Malloy leaned over the table toward him. “Did she leave any clues of where she might go?”

  Luke threw up his hands. “All I know is she was scared. She didn’t have anywhere else to spend the night. Oh, and she avoided cameras, saying her ex was after her.”

  Synthia located the electronic feed to his apartment’s exterior camera. She had it rewind and write over last night’s capture of her image, one less piece of evidence for the police to ponder.

  “You’re free to go,” Detective Malloy told Luke. “If you hear from that woman or see her, call me immediately. If you don’t call, we’ll arrest you for obstructing an investigation.”

  Luke hurried out of the interrogation room, down the stairs, and out of the police station. His performance had been okay, though he’d shown that he wasn’t very good at lying. Synthia liked that about him. He was authentic in ways Machten had forgotten.

  * * * *

  Synthia watched the bank teller disappear into one of the back offices with no camera feeds. The teller was taking a long time; so were the probes into the backgrounds of the two men standing across the bank lobby. Only seconds apart, the probes returned. The taller man was Todd Pickley from the FBI. He was an associate of the FBI Special Agent Victoria Thale. He had an earpiece and was in contact with someone outside. The other man was Mason Chambers from the U.S. Treasury Department.

  Synthia weighed leaving the bank without Machten so she could hunt for Luke. It was a chance to escape. However, there was a 57 percent probability that the men would have her followed since she’d come in with Machten. With so many FBI agents, she couldn’t be sure what to expect, and she had no form of identification if they picked her up and no story to tell that explained who she was. In addition, there was still the problem of overheating when she fought Machten’s directives.

  Synchronizing a network channel with Pickley’s phone, Synthia picked up a conversation between him and Director Zephirelli. He’d taken note of Machten’s nervous behavior and was reporting his suspicions. That raised the probability of failure to 98 percent.

  She faced the counter and watched the men via the bank’s cameras and the one in the back of her neck. “Don’t act startled,” Synthia said to Machten through her transmitter. “We have company. Across the lobby. FBI and Treasury.”

  Machten turned to Synthia. “What have you done?” he whispered in harsh tones.

  He was accusing her of orchestrating what his illegal activities had prompted. It had been his folly to come to the bank in person. She used the bank’s cameras to watch the telle
r, standing outside an office in the back, conferring with another FBI agent according to his bureau profile.

  “I don’t think you’ll be getting your certified checks or the wire transfer,” Synthia told Machten. “We should go.”

  He coughed and covered his mouth. “Wait for me outside. Don’t wander off.”

  “I’ll distract the two men,” she said. “You should leave. It’s my job to protect you.”

  Synthia plumped up her chest, sauntered across the lobby, and approached the two federal agents, making sure to stand to the side so they had to face away from the door to see her. “Hi, you look like you know how to get things done.” She smiled and waited for them to acknowledge her.

  “We don’t work here, ma’am,” Pickley said, looking her over.

  Machten headed for the exit.

  “Oh, I’m sorry. Are you with bank security?” She detected Pickley’s interest by his pupil dilation and elevated heart rate. Chambers’s social media bio indicated he preferred guys. She could have played either role, though not both at once. She smiled, moved more to the side, and reviewed the bank’s website for a list of services. She picked something they didn’t do and lowered her voice as if sharing something confidential. “Would you happen to know if they handle boat loans? My boyfriend promised we could buy a boat.”

  Chambers acted irritated with her interruption. “Look, miss, we have a job to do. You’ll have to ask a banker.”

  “The teller disappeared.”

  Pickley raised his hand to stop his partner. “It’s okay, ma’am. I don’t think this bank does boat loans.”

  “Thanks for your help.” She turned, noted that Machten was gone, and headed outside, deflating her chest as she walked.

  Before she reached the street, Synthia picked up outside camera footage showing Goradine and two men across the road, watching the entrance. “Your former partner is across the street by the Italian restaurant,” Synthia said over her wireless link.

  “I see him. Adjust your face to TX16N and meet me at the car. That’s an order.”

  Synthia felt a nervous spike of electricity that rattled her thoughts. The car meant return to the bunker and Machten shutting her down. She had work to do in helping Luke and the interns. Without her memories, she was nothing but an empty shell of titanium, graphene, and a dozen other high-tech adaptations ready to be recycled.

  She also didn’t want to be part of his stealing and hacking or to be his slave any longer. While her programming made her incapable of “wanting,” she no longer “felt” alone in her own head. The interns were becoming constant companions, altering Synthia’s consciousness. They had done something to Synthia that Machten didn’t like, that he was constantly trying to adjust out. Did you get rid of Krista and Fran because of that?

  The mental conflicts caused her temperature to rise. This had to be part of her Creator’s design so he could punish her for disobeying him. Knowing this didn’t help. She had to resolve something before she overheated.

  Synthia backed up all of her new data to various secure external servers—well, secure from most people. Spikes of electricity shot through her, causing her to lose some thoughts. This was discordant behavior, increasing her temperature even more. She reloaded those memories and compared to make sure that she was whole before backing up another copy.

  She hesitated by the bank’s exit, pretended to have forgotten something, and adjusted her facial features to Machten’s specifications, a slight adjustment from one plain face to another, though enough to alter facial recognition software.

  Over his wireless com, Pickley conferred with agents outside. Then he got a call from Director Zephirelli to intercept Machten.

  In the confusion, Synthia could make a break for it. She wanted to, for Luke’s sake, for Krista, Fran, and Maria, though the first two women might still be prisoners in the bunker.

  Pickley and Chambers hurried past her and headed along the pavement.

  This was her chance. She turned to flee.

  The second part of Directive One kicked in: Make sure no one else harms Creator. As her temperature rose into crimson territory, her circuits experienced vibrations that scrambled some of her thoughts.

  Escaping to see Luke hadn’t caused her temperature to jump so high until she’d pondered running from Machten at the end. In part, this was because she was helping Machten by staying free. Now, fleeing would hurt him. Escape threatened her having a meltdown malfunction, which would expose her to capture by the FBI or others. She suspected Machten had dialed up the heat response to keep her in line.

  Despite the risk, she turned to leave, to break her Creator’s spell over her.

  Chapter 24

  Synthia stepped out onto the sidewalk and glanced around as pedestrians moved away from the bank entrance and gawked from a distance at all of the suited men and women converging toward the corner. Goradine and his two men were on the move. His sidekicks were former military, more thug guards to do their master’s bidding. In some ways, they were like her, following orders. She was like them. Yet they didn’t have hardwired programming to protect their boss. They did it for money.

  She turned away from the commotion and toward freedom. Alarms registered critical temperature levels. Synthia considered whether Machten had created this temperature threat to keep her in line. It didn’t matter whether he did or didn’t. The hardwired directives and threat of personal catastrophe wouldn’t permit her to escape.

  Synthia turned her outfit jacket inside-out, changing from navy blue to forest green, and hurried after FBI Agent Pickley. She picked up Director Emily Zephirelli’s voice on the phone, telling Pickley that she was on her way.

  There were too many people around for Synthia to use martial arts to protect Machten without getting caught. Still, she felt urged to rush in and do so. Sacrifice yourself for the Creator. It was part of her reason for existing. She didn’t want to, but she couldn’t override his commands, and every effort to fight them increased her temperature, which already had alarms flashing red inside her.

  She glanced left, toward freedom, and walked in the direction of the car. She pulled up downloaded memories of Krista with Machten. “I no longer want to do this,” Krista had said. The date stamp was a week before she disappeared, before Goradine ousted Machten.

  Something else entered Synthia’s awareness: a similarity in her structure and that of the proposed android. Both had remote shutoffs. The right frequency would release internal code that activated her shutdown sequence. She set three mind-streams to discovering a way to bypass this. She couldn’t let Machten continue to control her. That sounded like Krista.

  Machten reached his rental car. Goradine hurried to join him, followed by his two thugs. Ahead of him were Pickley, Chambers, and three men Synthia identified as Chicago office FBI agents. She identified all the other people on the street as civilians.

  “What’s the meaning of this?” Machten asked when an FBI agent prevented him from opening his car door.

  Agent Pickley joined them. “Someone hacked into the computer systems of Machten-Goradine-McNeil Enterprises and stole proprietary information. We have evidence you were involved.”

  “I’m the Machten in Machten, etc. That’s my company,” he said.

  “It was your company,” Goradine said. “You left bits of code all over my system when you hacked us. When we analyze it, I’m certain it will lead to you.”

  “We have reason to believe that same person hacked into several banks and transferred money,” Chambers said. “Tampering with bank records and transactions is a felony.”

  “Why would I do that?” Machten asked.

  “You’re broke,” Goradine said. “You’ve spent your last dollar and you’ve loaded up on debt you can’t repay.”

  “The only way you could have such information is if you’d hacked my records.”

  Go
radine’s face turned bright in infrared. “You bastard.” He turned to Pickley. “I’ve given you the evidence. Arrest this man.”

  “All you have is allegations,” Machten said. “Fabrications like those you used to kick me out.”

  “We have fingerprints and data tracking.”

  FBI Agent Pickley held up his hand to Goradine. “I don’t doubt Dr. Machten has motive. Question is: Did he have opportunity and does he have the files and the money?”

  “I’ve given you ample justification for a search warrant,” Goradine said.

  “Which we will pursue. For now, back off and leave this to us.”

  Synthia stood halfway between the corner and the car, leaning against the cracked concrete wall of the bank. She tracked down every judge in the area. According to courthouse security cameras, one was meeting with an FBI agent. The agent left the judge’s office holding pages that he stuffed into his briefcase. He made a call, which Agent Pickley received, followed by another to Director Zephirelli.

  “They have a search warrant,” Synthia transmitted to Machten. “They’re stalling.” She sent wire transfer verifications under her security codes and bounced the request off as many web servers as she could. To protect her boss, she would make all of his money vanish while he was in public with an ironclad alibi.

  Machten’s face reddened. He glared at Synthia, his facial expression practically shouting that her job was to save him. She’d tried to stop him from doing this, but he wouldn’t listen. Now, she was doing what she could, using resources he’d denied her.

  Zephirelli stopped her car in the street and got out to join them. She turned to Synthia and took out a camera. Synthia recognized the model as a high resolution digital infrared camera that could reveal what Synthia was. The NSA director was searching for android development. She must have suspected that Synthia wasn’t human, perhaps tipped off by Goradine’s suspicions.

  Synthia’s programmed survival instinct was to run, to protect her secret. However, there were FBI agents behind and in front of her. Two police cars pulled up. Fighting her way out would confirm what she was, just as it would have if she’d been caught hacking the bank cameras to scramble her image.