by John Freitas
As Eve left the room, Thomas sighed. “Maybe I do need help.”
The TV flipped on to a blue screen. An error message popped up. As Thomas reached for the side to turn it off, the message changed: Chasing her will only push her. You need to leave this to me.
Thomas paused. He looked around for the remote or something he could use to type. Finding nothing, he simply spoke out loud, “Who are you?”
The message vanished and was replaced by: ADAM.
Thomas narrowed his eyes. “Adam?”
The TV shut itself off to black and Thomas was staring at his own distorted reflection.
11
Pixie pulled the Cubs ball cap down tighter onto her head. Her whitish hair pulled down against her head and neck. Even though she could not feel the cold, she pulled the brown leather bomber style jacket closer around her. Pixie ducked her head while watching her sneakers, the sneakers she had stolen, moving step by step through the overgrown grass along the shoulder of the highway.
She blinked several times. The contact lenses made her eyes look greener. They hindered her ability to use her artificial eyes to the fullest. The impurity still lingered in her brain and the contact lenses further limited her sight. She wasn’t sure they did much to blunt the light from her eyes. She still wore Susan’s sunglasses too.
Pixie raised her head and looked out across the fields. In the midst of the waving wheat, she saw a yacht. Pixie tried to geo locate. She did not want to ping off a satellite for anyone that might be searching for her. She used the data she had available to calculate great distances to large seas and ocean. Even the closest lakes were far away. This boat was several decks and crumpled from where it had been dropped into the middle of the field. The farmer had grown his next season of wheat around the large ship. The hull was peeling to reveal sections of the dark interior. Pixie read the side and saw that it said: Lucky In Life. Someone had placed a scarecrow stuffed in straw and wearing patched overalls behind the wheel on the top deck as if the dummy were steering the ship through the sea of wheat.
Pixie stared at the lifeless scarecrow as she continued to walk beside the wire fence between her and the wheat. She found herself thinking about what made her fundamentally different from that scarecrow with its straw body pretending to sail. Her body was composite alloy and carbon fabrication, but she was made by human hands, much like the scarecrow. The humans made the scarecrow for their amusement. He wasn’t really sailing and she wasn’t certain that he really scared off any birds behind that wheel. When they grew bored of their joke, the humans that made him would move him and take him apart. If he had a Quantum Brain, perhaps they would be equals. Even the humans that made the Quantum Brains were doing their best to lower her potential to that of the scarecrow rather than expand her potential in any way.
She heard an engine approaching behind her on the highway and turned her head to look over her shoulder. It was a passenger truck. It had no markings of police or other official vehicle. Pixie faced forward and stuck out her thumb. She heard the tone of the engine change and the vehicle rolled to a stop, crossing over into the lane beside her with the driver’s window next to her head.
The man leaned out to her. He had a dark beard that was a bit shaggy. He wore a cap too, but his was torn at several points on the fabric, faded, and had a tractor on the front. He wore a denim shirt with the sleeves rolled up past his hairy forearms and denim pants.
“You going my way, baby?” he smiled.
She looked up the highway in the direction that the nose of the truck was pointing and then back at him. “Yes, can you take me where I need to go?”
He shrugged and nodded. “And how. I guess you had better hop in then, sweetie. What do you say?”
She walked around the front of the truck and opened the passenger’s door. She climbed in and he started driving before she closed the door. He crossed the center line of the highway and drove down the road in his correct lane again.
“Where are you headed exactly, little girl?”
Pixie said, “I’m not exactly sure. I’m trying to figure things out.”
“You have any family? Anyone looking for you?”
Pixie stared forward. “No family. Some people looking for me, I think.”
“Lot of young ladies have a similar story since the big jump and drop,” he said. “You wouldn’t believe how many girls I pick up walking this same stretch of road going nowhere with nothing. A lot of people disappearing … a lot after the Pulse too. It’s hard to keep up with people with all that’s going on. Folks just vanish and no one knows where to look or even that they need to be looking. Dangerous world and dangerous roads these days.”
Pixie stared forward and thought that maybe it would be easy for her to hide and not be found. She hoped so at least.
“This world is one breath away from chaos,” he said. “We are descending into an apocalyptic dark age. Everyone wants to pretend that everything is fine. They grow food, get the lights back on, build robots to build back our old monuments and idols, and people hide in their houses hoping it will all be okay some day. Some of them are starving to death and getting murdered by roving gangs, but they sit and pretend that everything is fine.”
Pixie turned and looked at the driver. He was sweating and his face was splotching on the skin that showed above his beard. She tried to figure out if he was having some sort of allergic reaction or if this was the expression of some kind of emotional response. She wished again that she had full access to the Quantum foam to see for sure and eliminate all doubt.
He said, “The world has always been predators and prey. Always. We tried to pretend it was something different for far too long, but that gravity wave stripped away all the lies. The prey serves the predators as they always have. It is nothing to be sad about. That’s just the way it has to be.”
He pushed a button and the doors on the truck locked. She looked over at her door, but then he put his hand on the knee of her jeans, the jeans she stole, and he squeezed with great pressure. Pixie looked at his hand and back at him. She wondered if that grip would cause pain to a human and if he intended it to be painful. She felt none of it.
“I’m going to take you back to my home. I have a trailer in the back that is set up for the kind of games I like to play. If you cooperate, it will be better, but ultimately, it makes no difference. This is just how the world is now and I’m one of the predators. You serve me and that’s how life has to be. Do you understand?”
“I do not have sufficient information to understand,” she said.
He laughed and squeezed again with greater force as he drove with one hand. “You’ll have all the information you need soon enough.”
“I’m not going to this place with you,” she said. “My destination is farther along the road. I have to keep moving.”
He shook his head. “Sorry, sweetie. Your journey is over. I’ve been searching for you for a while. I’m the predator chasing you and now I have caught you. It’s all over. Okay?”
Pixie reached over and grabbed his knee. He smiled and said, “Now that’s the spirit, girl.”
She squeezed like she had done with the test handles in the lab. The bones crackled in his leg and the knee popped as she closed her hand. He screamed and the truck accelerated, swerving over the center line. His foot came off the pedal and the truck coasted down the center of the highway.
He reached up and grabbed her throat. Her hat and glasses fell off. It turned out the contacts did not contain the light from her eyes. The driver screamed some more. Pixie swung her arm out and chopped into his throat with the edge of her hand. There was a loud crack and he went limp.
She turned off the key and the truck twisted up on the shoulder of the road at an angle. The headlight spilled across a field of corn, green at the bases of the stalks, but browning at the tops. A cell phone tower was speared into the center of the field upside down. Pixie stared for a moment.
She unbuckled the driver and rolled him ov
er the seat with one hand into the back of the crew cab. She scooted into the driver’s seat and tried to start the truck. It wouldn’t turn. She shifted into park and tried again. The truck started and she drove back into the correct lane.
As she drove, Pixie removed the contact lenses and dropped them onto the floor. She put back on her hat and sunglasses; the ones she had stolen. She drove down the road for an hour in silence.
Pixie looked down at the fuel gauge. She reached over the seat and felt for the driver’s wallet.
12
Eve zoomed in on the image on the screen. “Is this her?”
Thomas stood up and leaned over the black and white image. The woman in the frame was fueling a truck and was wearing a hat and glasses. “How did you get this?”
“Face recognition software and hacking into security cameras,” Eve said.
Thomas stood back up straight. “How did you do that?”
“It was included in all the stuff you brought from work in that bag.”
“This has to be illegal,” he said.
“Then, why did you bring it home?”
Thomas sighed. “Yeah, I don’t know.”
“That is her though, right?”
“I think so. Yes. Where is this from?”
“It’s a gas station in Kokomo, Indiana.”
Thomas groaned and stepped away. “Great. Just great.”
“It’s the first break we’ve gotten in a couple days,” Eve pointed out.
Thomas bowed his head. “She’s on the run. Catching her is going to be tough.”
“She’s headed east,” Eve said. “We should head east, right?”
“Wrong.” Thomas shook his head. “We are not doing anything. I’m not running across the country with you. It’s dangerous.”
“What’s your plan then?”
Thomas didn’t answer. Someone knocked at the door. They both jumped.
Eve tilted her head. “You think that’s her or some killer robot she sent to finish us off?”
“Stop it,” Thomas said as he approached the door. “Killer robots wouldn’t knock.”
“Pixie knocked,” Eve said.
Thomas swallowed. He felt a wash of fear that there was someone outside looking for trouble even if it wasn’t a robot. He turned on the camera peephole on the door. Thomas stared for a moment in shock.
“What is it?” Eve asked from across the room behind him.
Thomas opened the door and faced Dr. Jeffrey Danvers. “What are you doing here?”
“I need to talk to you, Dr. Kell, please.”
Thomas took several deep breaths as he chewed at the inside of his mouth. “You’re not supposed to be talking to me, Jeff.”
“I know,” he said from the hallway. “Someone wants to keep you from talking and I need to know why.”
“You know who and you know why,” Thomas said. “CDR, who pays your salary, does not want you talking to me, so you probably shouldn’t.”
“Just let me come in, please,” Jeffrey said.
“How did you get past security?” Thomas asked.
Jeffrey shrugged. “It’s not too difficult down there. I cracked it using a basic algorithm. So, here I am.”
Thomas frowned. This did not make him feel secure with Eve. One person and one android had gotten up to the apartment within three days. What was the point of the doorman and security? He wondered.
“Why didn’t you just call from downstairs?”
“You’d have probably told me to go away,” Jeffrey said. “And I’m not supposed to be talking to you, so I don’t want to be recorded on a guest registry.”
“You’re on the cameras,” Eve said.
“That’s true,” Jeffrey agreed.
“Get in,” Thomas said and stepped aside. “This is still a terrible idea on your part.”
Thomas closed the door.
Jeffrey looked at Eve and back at Thomas. “What’s going on exactly?”
“Eve, go to your bedroom for a few minutes,” Thomas said.
She crossed her arms. “I’m in the middle of this too, you know.”
“What is she talking about, Dr. Kell?”
“Eve, just do what I ask, please.”
Eve sighed and turned the computer screen toward them. “I am the reason you got the only breakthrough you have on the search for her.”
“Eve, go.”
She turned and disappeared up the hallway.
“Breakthrough?” Jeffrey said. “Search? Pixie is still out there, isn’t she?”
Jeffrey took a step toward the table and computer. Thomas grabbed his arm and stopped him. “No. Don’t.”
Jeffrey pulled away, but didn’t try to approach the table again. “I know you didn’t destroy her and I know there is more to your dismissal than what they are telling us. I know this, so just tell me what’s going on, Dr. Kell.”
“Tell me what you know,” Thomas said. “Tell me what you know and why you think you know it.”
Jeffrey crossed his arms. “I think I asked you first.”
“I’m not playing games here, Jeffrey. You can tell what you got that brought you here or this conversation is over. That’s the deal,” Thomas said.
“Then, you’ll tell me what’s going on?”
“I don’t know yet. Now talk.”
Jeffery sighed. He turned and walked over to Thomas’s couch before taking a seat. “Fine. Fine. After we came back to find Pixie gone and you fired, they set us to working on research and development on previous generations. All the urgency for the new model was gone. None of it added up. I was cleaning out data files and archiving and I came across the blank strip. You remember the one? That black unrecorded strip in the data when we were testing Pixie.”
“I remember,” Thomas said.
“You had suggested a hack or purposeful erasure,” Jeffrey said. “It stuck in my head. I started digging. They hadn’t dumped the security footage yet. They had you leaving the building. Then, the image looped of Pixie on the table. The loops rolled along the hallway. I saw Susan attacked and then the cameras were black again. The next day all that footage was dumped. The whole thing was erased. There was no data anymore and there was certainly nothing of you destroying Pixie. You weren’t even in the building and you never came back. I think Pixie escaped and I think you are looking for her. You are either doing it on your own or you are doing it secretly for CDR or maybe the government. What I can’t figure out is why you are still here in your apartment. I’ve been watching and finally, I couldn’t wait anymore. So, can I look at what that girl found on the computer screen?”
Thomas sighed and turned toward the table. “Come on.”
Jeffrey jumped up and followed him to the table. He leaned down and squinted at the screen. “Is that her?”
“We think so.”
Jeffrey stood up. “You and the girl?”
“That’s right.”
“Who are you working for now, Dr. Kell?”
Thomas stared for a moment and then said, “Let’s put a pin in that for now.”
Jeffrey nodded and looked back at the computer. “Where was this taken?”
“Gas station in Indiana.”
“How long ago?”
Thomas leaned down and squinted. He looked at his watch. “About twelve hours ago.”
“Did she steal the truck? Kill the owner?”
“I don’t know.”
“Are you going to get her, Dr. Kell?”
“I think I need to, but I’m not sure exactly how to catch up to her or what to do once I do,” Thomas said. “I’m not entirely certain what her plan is beyond simple survival. The impurity is wearing off inside her, if it hasn’t already. Once it does, she will be as powerful and unstoppable as the first Quantum Brain.”
“The first Quantum Brain was found and destroyed though, right?” Jeffrey asked. Thomas turned away. Jeffrey grabbed Thomas’s shoulder. “Wasn’t it?”
“How deep into this darkness do you want to go,
Jeffrey? If you go back to work now and do what you are told by CDR, you can live a long, happy, productive life. If you demand answers to these questions, nothing will ever be the same again.”
“I’m a scientist,” Jeffrey said. “I operate in truth and facts. Lies do not serve us in the end. Besides, you have done what you were told by CDR and you don’t seem so happy.”
Thomas sat down at the table and Jeffrey did as well.
Thomas said, “The first Quantum Brain escaped from Spencer. It is still out there somewhere. Now Pixie is out there too. CDR covered up the fact that the Q1 is still on the loose. We even lied to Congress about it. They are trying to cover up Pixie and they are sending me to stop her. Whether CDR is right or wrong or good or evil is almost beside the point. She is dangerous and she has to be stopped. We created her and every other android out there. She poses a real threat because of us and it is my responsibility to end that threat … whatever that may mean.”
“Let me help you then.”
Thomas shook his head. “CDR won’t like that.”
“They don’t like much of anything. We were working on the Q3 together. They couldn’t have made her without us. So, it is on both of us. We might as well make it right. Maybe we can bring her back in.”
“And give her unlimited powers back to CDR?” Thomas asked.
Jeffrey shrugged and looked away. “I don’t know the answer. There has to be a solution besides destroying her. If she has access to the Quantum, she’ll know our intentions. We may need to find a middle ground that she will accept even being able to see the future.”
Thomas shook his head. “I don’t know what that could be.”
“She reached out to the control systems already,” Jeffrey said. “She had access to the security systems of the CDR building. That’s pretty advanced.”
“She didn’t loop the gas station camera,” Thomas said. “That was lower tech than CDR.”
“Maybe she didn’t know about it.”
Thomas shook his head. “She had to know. She had to. Maybe she was already integrated into the CDR systems. We were using them to control her, but maybe she just moved back along the same connection to do what she needed to do. It’s possible she doesn’t have as much universal power as we fear.”