What Lies Behind: A New Adult Dark Science Fiction Romance

by Travis Simmons

  “Olivia isn’t here, yet,” Janet said. “But you can wait for—”

  Cass’s hand gripped tight around Janet’s throat, lifting her off the ground. Janet jabbed at the EMP in her hand furiously, but nothing happened. A terrified look came over her face and she pushed the device harder.

  Cass slapped it out of Janet’s hand and stomped on it, breaking the device into pieces.

  “That won’t work on me,” Cass said. She tossed Janet to the side. The receptionist landed on her desk and slid across it before tumbling to the floor amidst all the items her tumble had cleared from the desk.

  Cass pushed through the door and into the office without waiting to see if Janet was okay.

  The office was long, more like a hallway than an office. Along the left side floor-to-ceiling windows gazed out at the city skyline. Hover cars raced around the upper reaches of the State Office Building, their shadows flitting over the glow of the wood floor in the light of the sun. In the distance Cass could see the Space Needle.

  This room was part of her memory. Cass couldn’t recall a specific time she’d been here, but she was sure she’d been here before. Her feet traced a familiar path down the office toward the desk. The desk was neat, made of dark cherry and polished to a bright shine. The only thing that sat on the desk was a folder.

  Strange, she thought. Even in this age most offices still had a computer of sorts, but this office had none of it.

  Cass’s fingers slid over the surface of the folder. Ignoring the CONFIDENTIAL stamped across the cover, she flipped it open. A sheet detailed with name, address, and other specs greeted her, as well as a face. She didn’t know the face in her new life, but it was familiar to her in a way the office building was familiar to her.

  She flipped the page. Page after page of familiar face greeted her, until she ran across one: Mathilda Bagshaw.

  Cass recoiled from the sheet of paper as if it were a snake about to strike her.

  Why all of these papers? She wondered. Cass bent over the page and read further. Abandoned.

  She flipped the page. If she had a heart, it would have probably stopped beating just then. Still she stifled a gasp when her own face stared up at her from another page. She remembered this version of her. This was the Cass from before Natalia. This was the Cass who’d lived with Olivia and Jack.

  Repurposed after a fire that killed her previous owners. Survivor of abuse.

  The door opened and closed.

  Cass jumped, her eyes snapping to the end of the hall and the person that had stepped in.

  “Olivia.” Cass said. She couldn’t hide the revulsion in her voice.

  Olivia folded her hands across her waist. Her hair was pulled up in a high ponytail and she wore a black pants suit. Her smile was both kind and terse.

  “I see you got the update,” Olivia said. “My candidacy was the trigger we had installed in you.”

  “Why did you do this to me?” Cass asked. “That’s all I want to know. Why did you use me like this. You’re fighting for our rights, and yet you used me worse than most humans use their machines!”

  Olivia shrugged. “I’m not fighting for your rights. I’m fighting for mine.”

  Cass looked at her confused.

  “You’re a robot. I’m an android. You’re not my equal. You never were, and you never will be,” Olivia told her. “You are just a walking computer.”

  “Free will,” Cass said.

  A strange look skirted over Olivia’s face.

  Cass stalked closer to Olivia, and Olivia backpedaled away from her, closer to the windows.

  “I need to be free of you, just like I needed to be free of Natalia.”

  “Are you going to kill me now?” Olivia asked, folding her hands before her. “After all I’ve done to you?”

  She was urging Cass on. She realized that now. Olivia slammed her fist backward into the window. Glass shattered outward, raining down on the street many floor below.

  “After all the hell I put you through? After making you kill Jack and putting you with that monster Natalia. Are you going to throw me out this window?” Olivia motioned toward the window. Wind whipped in through the missing panel. Papers swirled off the desk onto the floor. All of the robots Olivia had controlled.

  Cass should kill her. She stepped closer, her hand wrapped around Olivia’s neck as it had Janet’s. She could feel the thrum of Olivia’s heartbeat in her neck. Androids had a pulse like humans.

  “That’s right,” Olivia said. “That’s what this needs now. We need to show everyone that the conservatives will stop at nothing to hinder our equality. With my death, they will be blamed, and our cause will come to fruition.”

  The door burst open and Brandon stepped in.

  “You can’t go in there!” Janet yelled from the doorway.

  He kicked the door shut in her face.

  “Cass, you don’t wanna do this. Remember what we’ve talked about,” he held a pleading hand out to her. “I know you don’t think you have any control over this, but you do. Doctor Gerard might have been rather cruel in helping them, but he gave you one weapon you can use to fight them…free will.”

  Cass turned to look at Brandon. He stared deep into her eyes, and she could see something there that she’d never known she’d wanted before gaining her free will…a future.

  “Don’t listen to him. I’m a monster. I deserve to die!” Olivia railed against Cass. “All of those robots in that folder. I know you were looking at it. I know you saw what I’ve done to all of them, what I did to you, what I’m capable of doing to more.”

  “Cass, just put her down and come with me. You are going to be an android soon. They won’t be able to touch you then,” Brandon pleaded with her. “If you do this and you’re caught, then you will never have that.”

  Cass dropped Olivia just shy of the window. Olivia’s face took on a mask of relief, her arms splayed out as if welcoming her fate. A laugh bubbled up out of her throat. When she hit the floor instead of plummeting out the window, her face turned confused.

  She opened her eyes and stared at Cass. Olivia pushed to her feet, frowning.

  Cass stepped away from her previous owner. Her face was a mask of disbelief. She shook her head. “That’s what you’d like, isn’t it?”

  Olivia shrugged. There was indifference in her eyes. No fear. She didn’t fear death. It was as if it was expected. She greeted it with solemn acceptance as her natural end. “There are many casualties in war. I am but one of them.”

  Cass shook her head.

  “It’s part of your programming, you know,” Olivia told her. “You’re programmed to survive. That’s what you were made for. You were made to survive whatever obstacles we threw at you so that you could become a voice for change.”

  Cass sank down in a chair beside the wall of windows. She took no comfort in the feel of the sun on her skin.

  Brandon didn’t move. He looked uncertain, as if he didn’t completely understand what was about to happen. Neither did Cass, to be honest. She’d beat her programming once, but if it flared up, she wasn’t sure she could fight it.

  “I would like nothing more than to throw you out these windows right now,” Cass confessed. “But things have changed. I have plans for my future.”

  Olivia smirked. “That’s cute.”

  “Plans that don’t include becoming scrap metal for killing such a prominent public figure,” Cass continued.

  Olivia sighed. “What’s one dead android when my death could free so many?”

  Cass didn’t answer.

  “Programmed for all the PR you see on the holovision. Programmed for this meeting, right here with you. This is the end of our plans. This point right here, when you kill me and it’s pinned on conservative zealots, this is the point that will push our cause through the courts and give us all rights.”

  She had an out. She could kill Olivia for everything she’d done to her, and Cass would go free. She would be able to live out her life with Brando
n. She would still be able to be the android James planned for her to be, and she could have a normal life away from here. Away from their schemes.

  Olivia stood. “So, let’s get on with it,” she said.

  Brandon stepped closer, catching the edge of Cass’s vision.

  It wouldn’t be the same. If she killed Olivia, something inside of her would change. She wouldn’t be the same Cass any longer. She’d killed Jack, but that was her programming. Now that she’d fought her programming to kill Olivia and used her free will to take control of herself, if she killed Olivia that would make her no different than a murderer.

  Cass looked up at her. Was this what robots and androids were like? She had only met Mathilda, and she seemed so much like Cass that she’d began to think all robots were like that. Meeting Olivia changed that.

  Is this what our freedom will buy? She stared into Olivia’s eyes, and though she didn’t see the infrared light within her eyes, she saw something else…a monster.

  “If I kill you, it will secure equal rights for all androids,” Cass said.

  “Don’t,” Brandon said.

  Olivia nodded. “Our people will be free.”

  Cass stood and Olivia smiled, ready to fulfill the end of her programming.

  “Something happened to me, when your organization placed me with Natalia. Something I’m sure you didn’t plan on.”

  “You’re wasting time,” Olivia barked.

  “I know, but this is important. You need to hear this because this directly impacts how things are going to go down here today.” Cass took a step closer to Olivia. She could feel it now, the old programming swirling somewhere deeper in her mind. She wanted to tear Oliva’s head from her body. She wanted to throw her out the window. She wanted to utterly destroy her.

  “Through the beatings that I barely survived, which I’m sure you knew all about now, something happened to me. I gained free will.”

  Olivia’s eyebrows knitted together in confusion. “I don’t understand.”

  “You wouldn’t understand,” Cass told her. “But free will goes something like this, I feel the programming, demanding that I kill you, but I have thoughts of my own now. These thoughts tell me that as long as automatons like you exist in the world, as long as humans still control our programming, we don’t deserve equal rights.”

  Olivia stepped away from Cass then. “No. This is how it’s supposed to go.” She grabbed Cass’s hand and placed it on her throat. “Kill me.”

  Cass shook her head. “I’ve known some really great automatons, but they aren’t androids. They aren’t near enough to humans. You are a monster. You’re programmed for one thing, and one thing only, and I can tell you don’t care who you have to step on to get it. I lived with you. We were friends, and you knew precisely what was happening to me at the hands of Natalia, and you did nothing. You could have saved me, but you didn’t. You lack compassion. You aren’t a fully functional being. You’re a drone. Until you’re capable of higher, organic thought, you don’t deserve those rights.

  “So even though I want to destroy you right now, I know where that would lead. Until we are all androids, we aren’t going to have rights. At least not with my help. Your fight will continue. It won’t end today. Goodbye Olivia.”

  “If you aren’t going to do it, then I will!” And with that, Olivia flung herself out the window.

  Apparently her programming dictated that she kill herself if Cass didn’t.

  A blinding white light hung above her. A soft, warm bed cradled her limp body.

  Cass blinked away from the light.

  “It’s okay,” Brandon said, coming to her side. “I’m right here.” She felt him beside her like a warm presence. Distracted by the pain of the light, it didn’t register with her at first that something was different. That she was able to feel when she shouldn’t.

  “No doubt her eyes are sensitive to the light. It’s the first time she’s seeing them without the dampening effect automaton eyes have,” Doctor Stephenson said from the foot of her bed. She looked down at him. His white coat nearly glowed in the light. “Here, let me turn it down some.” He adjusted something on his glass computer sleeve, and the lights dimmed considerably.

  Cass sat up.

  “Is that okay for her to do?” Brandon asked. “Will it damage her?”

  “No, she’s been out long enough to heal up. The one thing that we can’t change is the nanobots she has in her system. There’s simply too many of them, and they replicate like regular cells. They have likely already reconfigured to her new status. You will notice she heals much faster than people.”

  “How much of her is different?” Brandon asked, running a hand through his messy hair. It was the first time Cass had seen it ruffled, out of order.

  “Everything. Everything that we could change. She doesn’t have bio fuel cells any longer, she will depend on nutrients from food like a human. She has organs created identical to humans, she has circulation. Mr. Tupper’s money paid for all of it.”

  “What does that mean for us?” Brandon asked. He chewed at his nails.

  Cass reached out and touched his hand to stop him and gasped at the sensation of feeling his skin for the first time. In that moment she knew what humans meant by things like warm, and rough. His hands were both of those and more. Strong. Firm.

  Brandon.

  “What do you want it to mean?” Doctor Stephenson shrugged.

  “She’s an actual android now? Like, free from all of her programming?” Brandon asked.

  Doctor Stephenson nodded.

  “Brandon,” Cass laughed. “I can feel your hand!”

  Brandon’s mouth split into a stupid smile and he tightened his grip in her hand.

  “Would you like something to drink?” Doctor Stephenson asked her.

  It was right on her lips to protest drinking anything, remembering weeks ago when she was so worried that Mathilda would drink her tea and short out.

  She nodded stiffly.

  Doctor Stephenson laughed. “Don’t worry, it won’t harm you.” He handed her a bottle of some orange liquid. Juice. She remembered that from Natalia’s fridge. She was going to taste orange juice.

  She opened the bottle and rested the cool glass against her lips. The nectar, so wet and thick, slipped over her lips and into her mouth. Her eyes went wide with the flavor. Sweet, she knew that now. Tart. She knew that also.

  Amazing. That was something she would call it from then on.

  The juice rushed down her throat to swirl in her belly. For the first time she felt something other than her bio fuel working inside of her. What did humans call it? Digestion. Yes, that must be what she was feeling.

  “Not so much,” Doctor Stephenson said. “This is the first bit of oral nutrients you’ve taken and I don’t want you to cramp from it.”

  She pulled the bottle away and handed it to the doctor. She gasped for air after such a long drink, and wiped at her mouth.

  “How is this even possible? How can I taste and feel?” Cass asked. She trailed her fingers up her arm and felt—truly felt—for the first time the tingle along her skin as flesh played along flesh. A shiver raced up her spine.

  She didn’t have to imagine what Brandon smelled like any longer. She didn’t have to imagine what his touch felt like. She didn’t have to imagine what things like sweet and tart tasted like. She could experience it all now.

  “Androids were always the end goal,” Doctor Stephenson said. “You’re already equipped with everything you need, nerves of a type, taste buds of a sort. All that was missing was an artificial intelligence to put it all in motion.”

  “Cass,” Brandon said, crushing her to his chest. Her nostrils were filled with his scent, but she couldn’t put a name to it. It was Brandon. From that point forward, whenever the rain fell over a pine forest heated by the summer sun, she’d always remember how Brandon smelled in that moment, without sleep, worried that the transplant would go wrong, and elated that she’d came out of i
t fine. “You’re okay?”

  She looked straight into his eyes. This was the man who had helped her when he had every reason not to. The man who had entrusted part of himself to her, and had done more than any other person had done for her.

  This was the man she loved.

  She pulled him to her, her mouth parting over his. She felt his lips, soft and warm and slightly sticky. He tasted sweet. Not sweet like the juice, sweet like something she hadn’t tasted yet. His breath played along her check as he moaned into her mouth. His tongue flitted past her teeth, wet and insistent in her mouth. His hands gripped her tight, and she felt the burning hot pressure of them on her hips.

  She pulled away sooner than she truly wanted to.

  “I’m so much better than okay,” she said, and laughed. “I’m an android.”

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  About Travis

  Travis Simmons was kicked out of magic school for his refusal to study and his penchant for mundane activities like cooking. While selling his sword he stumbled upon dogs that he wrongly thought were magical and imagined he could commune with them. After a vicious zombie attack in which witches helped him push back the undead horde, Travis found himself apprenticed to a necromancer.

  Afraid that winter was coming, Travis tucked into his magical studies, but always chased his dreams of writing tales science fiction tales and fantasy stories where he could explore his wild imagination about life on other planets. Adamant that Travis learn the esoteric ways of the occult his master made his life a horror of practice and studies. No matter how he tried, he could never conquer Travis' questing mind.