The android female glanced at the bodies.
Milo slipped a DOD into his palm.
The use of the word, ‘kill’ in the context of an android sank into Milo’s consciousness until it began to quickly fester. Not because of his own scruples at ending the existence of a lifelike machine. For he had none. He felt only bitterness for their kind after the death of Max. What bothered him was the use of the word ‘kill’ by the android sex worker.
He glanced over his shoulder at the Kraannex corp tech. A young human female by the name of Mandy Ruko.
Milo calmly asked her, “Where would it learn words like ‘kill’?
“You know she can hear you no matter how quiet you whisper, right?”
Milo glared at Mandy.
Mandy fiddled with her orange cap and shrugged, “Beats me, Lieutenant. This model’s AI forbids violent vocabulary. ”
Milo stopped and stared at the android sex worker. “So why’s she ignoring me? It’s almost like she’s in shock.”
Mandy snorted, “That’s a human reaction that her programming would have no use for, Lieutenant.”
Milo sighed, “So you explain it.”
“Slap on the DOD and I’ll get you answers.”
Milo nodded. He told the android to hold out its hand.
The android glanced up with a perfect human face of extraordinary beauty. Even for an android sex worker. A real high-end model, Milo considered.
It seemed unaware of the blood splatter dripping down its face. Its thousand yard stare cut through Milo. As if it were no longer seeing him.
Milo repeated, “Hold out your hand, I have something for you.”
The android cried out, “I want to live.”
It leapt at Milo.
Milo tossed the DOD into the air and the android’s automatic reflexes caught it. That same instant, the nanobots in the DOD embedded themselves into the android’s outer skin layers and sent waves of pacifying commands into the android’s neural synapses.
Tiny bolts of blue lightning slithered across the android’s body. It screamed out in apparent pain. It went rigid and toppled over as if Milo had felled a giant Redwood.
It convulsed across the floor, as if carried on a cloud of blue lightning.
“If you fight it” Milo said, “you’ll only make it worse. Relax and the pain will go away.”
The lightning began to subside and the android lay on its back as wisps of blue smoked wafted off its skin.
Milo allowed himself to relax.
“What did you do to me?” the android asked staring down at its palm.
“We call it a DOD,” Milo said. “Nanobots disrupt rogue or corrupted AI elements in your programming. Pacifying anything that destabilizes your sensibilities. Stops you from demonstrating violent behavior.”
She stroked the disk like it was a kitten.
“It feels funny,” she said.
“It’ll feel a whole lot funnier if you show any violent behavior,” he said. “Zaps your billions of synapses with something akin to a lightning bolt of pain. That was just a demonstration. The next time it may fry your circuits for good.”
The android fell silent.
“No one here wants to hurt you,” Milo said and felt like an idiot explaining his motivations to a machine. “We just can’t have you harming human life.”
Mandy shot him a look as if he’d gone soft in the head.
“Are we good?” Milo asked and glanced at Mandy. The tech studied the readout on her tablet and nodded.
Calmly, the android said, “I understand.”
“So why’d you do it?” he asked and studied the android’s torn and shredded skimpy black leather outfit discarded on the floor.
The android shook its head. “Do what?”
Milo glanced at Mandy. “Over to you.”
Mandy fitted a device around the android’s head.
Milo sighed, “Show me its POV camera footage for this incident.”
Mandy rolled out a screen tablet and tapped a play button. They watched as the android’s four human clients, dressed in expensive business suits, slapped and punched the android. Violent sex ensued.
In the video of the sex acts, the android repeatedly cried, “No, No, please stop,” as all four human clients set upon it. Punching, biting, kicking, penetrating. Abusing the android sex worker with an assortment of sex toys.
Milo watched the video, reminding himself the human sex clients were abusing a machine, not a human, but it all seemed too lifelike. In revulsion, Milo turned away and watched the android as it listened to the video footage of its own pleading cries of pain.
In response, the android curled into a ball, a fetal position. Pulling its knees up to its chest. It seemed to shiver. Sweat beads formed on its forehead. Its hands balled into trembling fists.
In the video, the android convulsed and then grew rigid. Its eyes rolled into the back of its head.
“You killed it,” a male human voice said on the video.
“No, it’s faking,” another said and laughed. “Hey!”
On the video, the android sex worker’s eyes opened. It cocked its head to one side, licked its lips the way a cat might ponder the presence of a tiny bird. It calmly reached out at the nearest client thrusting on top of her. It placed one hand on either side of his head, and with a nonchalant smile, snapped the client’s neck, twisting until it tore the man’s head clean off his shoulders.
Screams erupted out of the video.
The other humans backed away from the android sex worker. They began throwing objects at the android as it sat up and grabbed the leg of another man. The man kicked at the android’s face. The android seemed unperturbed and simply, calmly, twist the man’s leg into an impossible angle, until it tore off the limb.
The android cast the leg aside and eyed the remaining two humans.
As the one legged man bled out and died, the android stood up, grabbed a third man by his throat and crushed his larynx. The man collapsed to the floor. Convulsing.
A fourth man, half naked, ran the length of the penthouse as the android sprinted after him. It grabbed him by the back of his head, dragged him, kicking and screaming across the white marble floor to where the others lay.
It then took an eight-inch long sex toy and inserted it into the man’s ear, until the object protruded out the other ear.
Milo told Mandy to stop the footage. He asked her, “Would this attack by her clients have destabilized the android? Turned it into a killer?”
Mandy shook her head. She said nonchalantly, “This model is designed for gang-rape fantasies.”
Milo felt his bile rise into his throat. “Designed? How?”
Mandy shrugged. “Narrowing the empathy parameters so they don’t peak and overload. Desensitizing the physical areas for rough penetration. The usual precautions to ensure the model remains reusable.”
“Reusable?” Milo blinked. Hard. “For a human woman you seem oddly unperturbed by all this sexual violence.”
Mandy shrugged. “Since Kraannex brought online its range of hard-core sex fantasy workers, incidences of actual real sex crimes on human women immediately declined by ninety four percent. And two years later, sex crimes on adult humans are virtually zero.”
“I know that,” Milo said. “I’m a cop, remember?”
“If a robot’s got to be raped every hour so I can feel safe walking the streets at night,” Mandy said, “then that’s fine with me.”
Milo swallowed hard. “Thanks for your candor,” he said. “In my line of work, it’s rare.”
She nodded and seemed distracted tapping away at her diagnostic feed.
“I’ve heard rumors,” Milo said, “that Kraannex is bringing out a child android sex worker. Can’t be true, right?”
Mandy nodded. “It will result in the same reduction in sex crimes against human children.”
Milo felt ready to vomit. “It just sounds wrong,” he said.
“You’d rather some sick pervert
kidnapped and tortured your child, Lieutenant?”
“No, but, profiteering from exploiting—”
“You’re a cop, I’m surprised by your reaction. With all the disgusting things you must have seen in your job, I thought you’d be all for ending it.”
“Sure! Everything you say I agree with,” Milo sighed, and indicated the shivering, naked android. “And yet, something prompted it to have a psychotic episode, killing four humans.”
“I don’t judge.” Mandy shrugged. “I just service them.”
He felt his hands ball into fists and forced them to relax. “And a great job you did.”
She sneered at his sarcasm. “Coming from a cop,” she said, “warms my heart.”
“Show me the previous client,” Milo said.
Mandy tapped at her tablet. “I can’t seem to access the time line in its memory banks before this incident.”
“Why not?”
“Looks like its encrypted. Without a court order, we’re done for today.”
Milo bundled the digital evidence and sent the package via his ICL to the court. It informed him he was number five hundred and forty four in the line to see a human Judge. Or twenty seconds from seeing an AI judge. He indicated his preference for a human judge.
He asked, “When did you last service this android?”
“What?”
He glared at her.
“Hey,” Mandy said and backed away, “this is nothing to do with me.”
“Show me your service records.”
Mandy scrolled through her tablet and showed him.
Milo tapped the screen and transferred the full service book to his ICL. It informed him that the last service was recorded one week ago. But that there was an anomaly with the service records.
Milo shook his head, “Mandy, your last service reported a peak in the emotion filters. That needed signing off by a specialist law officer like myself. You forgot to get that validation.”
Mandy flushed hot. “I was busy that day. Hey, with all the humans leaving for Mars, I’m rushed off my feet.”
“Sure,” he said, reaching for his magnetic handcuffs. “It’s an offense with an automatic mandatory five year prison sentence.”
Mandy’s eyes popped wide. “Androids are taking over my sector. I get paid less for more work. I meant to get around to it, but I just—”
“I don’t see a way I can turn a blind eye to this, do you?”
Mandy swallowed hard. “It was an honest oversight. The model checked out. Trust me, she was in perfect condition when I last serviced her.”
Milo felt his eyes narrow. “Who’s going to believe you?”
“You son of a bitch.”
He asked, “How many clients a week does this model acquire?”
“Not many,” Mandy said. “It’s our top of the range model. Only serves multinational corporate executives, billionaires, movie stars, politicians, the usual crowd.”
“Do me a favor,” Milo said to Mandy. “Hack access to the android’s processor for the names and addresses of all its previous clients since this model’s last service.”
“That’s more than my job’s worth, Lieutenant. Why should I?”
“You help me and I’ll validate your service record for this model.”
Mandy hesitated.
“Mandy, if we don’t figure out fast what turned your android into a psychotic killer,” Milo said, “you won’t have a job because there won’t be a single android that survives the human backlash.”
Mandy chewed her bottom lip. “Just a name? No actual footage, right?”
Milo’s ICL identified the android’s dead clients. “Executives on the board of Kraannex Global. Their names are—”
“Not now,” Milo said as he watched the android staring at herself in a full-length wall mirror. For the first time, it seemed, she noticed the blood splatter on her face.
Her hands flew to her face and she let out a scream. She spun around and glanced at the heap of bodies on the floor.
She tore at her hair and cried out, “Did I do that?”
Milo prompted his ICL to activate the DOD with pacifying commands to her brain’s neural synapses. She collapsed on the floor. He went to a bedroom, found a clean sheet, returned with it and wrapped it around the android.
While he was at it, he allowed his ICL to scan the android’s fingertips for blood samples and DNA. It confirmed four DNA samples matching those of the victims.
He glanced at Mandy, “How about that list of other clients?”
She nodded. “Got it. Oh no!”
“What is it?”
“If it ever gets back to me, I’m dead,” Mandy said. “You hear me, Lieutenant?”
“Who are the clients?”
“Just one.”
“Who?”
“Only like the most powerful man on the planet.”
“Who?”
“The CEO of Kraannex Global,” Mandy said. “My boss, Asia Monroe.”
Milo glanced at the android. It lay with its head on the floor. As if finding comfort in the cool marble surface.
He said. “What do I call it?”
Mandy said, “Huh?”
“The android. What’s its ID tag?”
The android opened its eyes and said, “My name is Agi.”
Mandy shook her head.
Milo asked, “What?”
“According to my records, “ Mandy said, “this model’s ID tag is KUZZ-W5. Not Agi.”
“What difference does it make? ‘Agi’ is easier to say than—”
“Androids don’t name themselves,” Mandy said. “It’s unheard of.”
“What does that imply?”
Mandy shrugged, “I’d have to do more tests.”
“Fine, do more tests,” Milo said and helped the android to its feet. “Agi, you got any street clothes?”
The android nodded.
“Put them on.”
“Lieutenant,” Mandy said, “I’ve instructions to dismantle the model.”
“Agi’s coming with me.”
“Where to?”
CHAPTER 3
Milo asked Mandy to give Agi a spare technician suit. Once Agi pulled it on, its nano fibers automatically adjusted for height, weight and size. Making for a perfect fit.
He led Agi to the roof of her building where his Police Department people-drone waited. He told Agi to climb in and he followed. He instructed the drone to take him to Asia Monroe’s apartment building.
They lifted off the helipad like an autumn leaf taken from a shedding tree by an October wind. Except the wind was far from seasonal, hot, dry and full of dust, sand and the acrid stench of burning vehicles. They soared into the orange fireball of the setting sun and flew over the city.
Milo watched with bemusement as Agi pressed her nose against the window and stared out at the long, flickering flame-like shadows of the city. She gazed at the hundreds of campfires. “They’re pretty, like fireflies,” she said. “What are they?”
“You got super zoom vision, right?”
She nodded.
“Then why not use it?”
She shrugged. “I’m afraid.”
“Of what?”
“Of seeing too much.”
He shook his head. “Daring to know is always the hard part,” he said. “I can’t explain it, until you see it.”
She nodded and squinted. She flinched as she gazed down at the streets. Her hands balled into trembling fists.
“You act like you’ve never flown before,” he said.
She nodded. “I’ve never been outside my apartment.” Her brow furrowed. “At least, that I know of.”
“Relax,” he said and glanced down at the scene of a human riot. His ICL zoomed in on the street violence of smashed shop fronts, burning cars and buses. It told him it was the tenth food riot of the month. Protesters were clashing with police over a reduction in human workplace rights. He could see the mass of people heralding an android they’d overpowere
d and set alight. Dragging it aimlessly along the street.
Milo sighed. “You’re safe up here.”
“Why do they do that?” Agi asked.
“Riot?”
Agi shook her head. “Kill androids.”
There was that word, ‘kill’ again. He stifled his shiver. “You act like androids are real people.”
“What is real?”
“The opposite of a machine. You know, capable of feelings, emotion, creativity, self-awareness.”
She turned to him. A tear in one eye. “Am I not real?”
He didn’t know which unnerved him more. That she was questioning her existence with self-awareness, or that she employed tears as a means to express herself. If he thought about it more, he could add to the list of concerns, but in that moment, his ICL told him they’d arrived at the rooftop helipad of Asia Monroe’s residential building.
They set down and the gull-wing doors opened automatically for them to disembark.
Standing on the roof, Milo told his ICL to display the building’s surveillance footage that had tagged Asia Monroe’s movements.
“Last twenty four hours,” he said.
His ICL scrolled video footage across his eye. It showed Asia Monroe in the underground parking lot stepping into a limousine with a beautiful young woman who seemed familiar. The ICL identified her as the East River headless corpse, Selene Wu.
“Track journey, in triple time,” he said and watched the footage speed up. The limousine traveled through the city on the empty streets of the early hours of that morning, sometime before sunrise. It stopped alongside the waterfront.
Milo recognized the chauffeur type, a Mark 3 enforcer android. Licensed for unarmed combat protection of a human client against hostile acts. Those models were all the same. Distinctive by their six foot four inch tall, powerful frame. It wore a suit well, like any high-powered executive, but that was about as far as it blended into the background.
The Mark 3 was designed to intimidate as a first level protection strategy. It sported a shaved head and two inch facial scar under one eye common to its model range. A design glyph that seemed to appeal to the target market.
The chauffeur stepped out of the limo, and let Selene Wu out onto the sidewalk near the bridge. The chauffeur climbed back into the limousine and drove away, leaving Wu alone by the waterfront. She paced up and down and a few minutes later, she walked to the bridge, and leapt off the edge into the water, far below. Death from the fall would have been instantaneous.
AGI Page 2