Carlie stared at Luke.
“You’re amazing, you know?” she whispered. “He’s right. You shouldn’t stay here.”
Damian surreptitiously passed the prison guard a small envelope. The guard pocked it casually and nodded.
Damian returned to the jail cell.
“It’s all taken care of,” he said, with a smirk. “You’ll be out of here by nightfall, Luke.”
Luke said nothing.
Damian took a step close to the bars.
“But you’ll need to promise me something, Luke,” he said. “I’m your new boss now. You work for Adventis Technologies. You answer to me, and me only. Got it?”
Luke looked directly into Damian’s eyes.
Damian held his hand out through the bars. Luke did not move for a moment, and then he grasped Damian’s hand.
He shook it, but the strength in his grasp was enough to make Damian’s face pale for a moment.
“Got it,” Luke said.
“This is extremely risky, Damian,” Carlie said in a low, tense voice, as she and Damian waited in the Rolls Royce, which was parked near the prison but hidden behind a long bus. “We’re breaking some major laws.”
“It’s all worth it,” Damian said. “Luke is going to help us perfect our robotic technology, Carlie. He’s going to make Adventis the biggest name in the world.”
“If you say so,” Carlie muttered. She smoothed down her skirt and stared down at her iPad.
Damian placed his hand on her knee.
“Want to … kill some time while we’re waiting?”
Carlie reddened.
“It’s hotter than an oven here. I’m all sweaty.”
“Then let’s get you out of those clothes,” Damian said, pulling her to him.
“It’s time for your recreation in the yard,” the prison guard said, knocking on the bars of Luke’s cell.
“I didn’t ask for recreation time,” Luke said.
“Trust me,” the guard said. “It’s time for your recreation.”
Without questioning further, Luke followed the guard down the corridor and into the elevator. Once they emerged from the prison building he took a deep breath. The hot, dusty desert air felt almost refreshing to him.
The recreation yard was empty. A bright moon shone in the sky.
The guard walked across the yard, Luke following him. He took out some keys and opened a small door in the thick wall of the yard.
“Get going,” he said. “And you’ll find a car waiting for you behind a bus.”
Luke ducked through the door. He walked through the wall and emerged on the other side of it.
Hardly believing he was free, he looked around. He saw the long bus and ran towards it, his feet making hardly any sound on the sand.
He saw the Rolls Royce and walked up to it.
The driver’s side window rolled down.
“What did I tell you, Luke?” Damian said. “Get in.”
Luke opened the door of the Rolls Royce and sat on the gleaming upholstered backseat. The air conditioned car was a relief to him.
“Where are we going?” he said, as the car drove away from the prison.
“To the Adventis building,” Damian said. “It’s your new home. I’ve got a room all set up for you. Top of the line amenities.”
Chapter 9.
“What do you think?” Damian said.
He watched in satisfaction as Luke took in the huge, opulent room on the sixty first floor of the Adventis building. There was thick white carpet on the ground. The walls were decked with huge sweeping windows. A full kitchen and bar stood on one side of the room and a white couch, four poster bed, and a flat screen television on the wall stood on the other side.
“It’s a magnificent room,” Luke said.
“It’s yours,” Damian said. “Tomorrow morning I’ll show you everything Adventis is working on.”
Luke walked towards the towering floor-to-ceiling windows and looked out of them at the glittering lights of the city.
“I’ll leave you to enjoy your new digs,” Damian said. “Good night.”
He left the room.
Carlie remained in her spot, looking at Luke who was still looking out of the windows. Sensing he was not alone, Luke turned.
Carlie walked up to him.
“You’re … you’re fascinating,” she said. “I’m glad you’re here.” She stood close enough to him that her knees almost brushed his.
She looked up into his face expectantly.
Luke’s expression was unreadable.
“You should go with him,” he said.
Carlie’s face fell. She swallowed. She turned and left the room quickly.
Luke sat down on the white sofa. He closed his eyes. The communication console in his head activated itself.
He pressed the inside of his wrist. The hologram keyboard appeared in front of him. He began typing a message.
“Miss Miles, are you there?”
He sent the message. In a few moments a message came back to him.
“Where are you?”
Luke hesitated before he sent his response.
“I am at Adventis.”
There was a long moment, and then a single-worded message came to him.
“Oh.”
“Damian Foster struck a deal with me. He arranged for my escape from the prison in exchange for my help with the technology Adventis is working on.”
“I’m just glad you’re safe,” Mandelie said. “Damian won’t do anything to harm you. He knows you’re priceless.”
“I will try to see you as soon as I can,” Luke responded.
“Okay,” Mandelie said. “The police aren’t making any progress on finding what happened to my dad. And they’re losing their minds trying to track you down. They still won’t let me into the lab either. Try to lay low for the next few days, if you can.”
“Understood,” Luke said. “Take care, Miss Miles.”
“You too. Good luck. Stay in touch.”
Luke closed his eyes as his communication console blinked twice. Without opening his eyes he accessed his memory storage and found an image file of Mandelie. The image was recent, taken in high resolution and startlingly clear. She was standing in front of him, a smile in her eyes. She had not known he had taken her photograph with his visual camera while they had been talking in the parking lot.
He looked at the photograph for a moment before he closed the file and drifted into a sleep state.
Chapter 10.
“Good morning, Luke.”
The voice roused Luke from his sleep state. He looked around his new opulent room but saw no one. Then he saw that the voice was coming from the TV, where a video recording of Damian was playing. Damian was sitting behind his desk in his office, looking refreshed and arrogant in a white shirt and dark green jacket.
“It’s 8:54 a.m., if your digital reading hasn’t already told you so,” Damian said, looking at his Rolex. “We have a full day ahead of us.”
Luke heard the door of his room open. A tall girl in a black and white maid’s uniform entered, pushing a silver cart of breakfast platters and carrying a plastic garment bag over her arm. She had short blond hair that looked suspiciously like a wig and a blandly polite face devoid of make-up.
“This is Miranda, your personal attendant. She is on call for you twenty four seven. She is responsible for your clothing needs, your housekeeping, and all of your culinary desires. Adventis employs four international chefs with broad-ranging menus.”
Miranda flashed Luke a plastic smile. Her blue eyes were pale and shallow. She began setting platters of food on the table in front of him. There were dishes of French toast, fruit and pudding, muffins and cookies, and a full pitcher of fresh orange juice.
“Enjoy your continental breakfast prepared by our chefs,” Damian said. “When you’ve finished, come up to my office.”
There was a click and the live video recording disappeared.
Luke eyed Mirand
a as she began pouring him a full glass of juice.
“You’re an android,” he said.
“Yes,” Miranda said, without stopping her pouring. “I am an Adventis Model 671, from the Fantastic Domestics line. Would you like some butter and syrup on your French toast, sir?”
Without waiting for him to answer she took butter and syrup from her cart and began applying it to the French toast.
Luke suddenly caught her wrist. He held it in his hand in a strong grip which began generating heat. He scanned the inside of her arm quickly with his internal sensors, gauging the wires and circuits within it.
Miranda did not seem surprised at all. She simply waited placidly until Luke had finished his scan and released her wrist.
“Do you have questions about my mechanisms, sir?” she said.
Luke shook his head.
“They are easy to understand,” he said. His comment did not seem to be a compliment.
“If you don’t mind me saying outright, sir, I can tell that you are a far superior model to me,” Miranda said. There was a trace of awe in her voice.
“I’m not a model for anything,” Luke said. “There’s only one of me.”
Miranda simply smiled. She laid the plastic garment bag beside him on the white couch.
“Your new clothes,” she said. “They were altered by Mr. Foster’s personal tailor. And new shoes.”
She produced a shoebox from the bottom of the cart and set it by his feet.
“I will go now. If you need anything, just pick up the phone and dial six.”
She turned and pushed her cart out through the door.
Luke took only a small sip of the orange juice. He ignored the food and opened the plastic garment bag.
He pulled out a stunningly-made silk suit with a pale blue dress shirt and dark blue satin tie. The shoes were made of Italian leather and in his correct size.
“Adventis has got him?” Trista said. She was sitting with Mandelie in the kitchen of her apartment, both of them drinking strong coffee and looking tired and pale from a lack of sleep and hours of panic after Mandelie had gotten the news that Luke had vanished from Fort Conway.
“They’ve got him,” Mandelie said. She shook her head.
“Between a maximum security prison and Adventis Technologies, Adventis is the lesser of the two evils. At least Damian knows how valuable Luke is and won’t do anything to harm him.”
“That sly slimeball,” Trista said. “He’s got some kind of evil plan in the works, and now Luke’s a part of it.”
Chapter 11.
“How was your breakfast?” Damian said, without getting up from his high-backed chair behind his desk as Luke walked into his office.
“Good,” Luke said. He had not tasted any of it.
Damian eyed Luke’s new attire. Carlie, sitting in a chair beside him, seemed enraptured. She reddened, coughed, and looked down at her iPad.
“I see we got your correct size,” Damian said. “Those clothes make you look like a lifelong executive at Adventis, Luke. Really nice.”
“Thank you,” Luke said.
“Please sit,” Damian said.
Luke sat in one of the modern black molded chairs in front of the desk.
“We’re going to start with a tour of the building, Luke. Not all of it - that would take years. Just the most important parts. What did you think of Miranda?”
“She’s … adequate,” Luke said.
Damian nodded.
“That’s exactly right. She’s adequate, and that’s all. But I want her, and all of the other ones in her model line, to be brilliant. I want them to be magnificent. I want them, in short, to be like you, Luke. That’s why you’re here.”
He grinned.
“For inspiration.”
Luke said nothing.
“You’re going to help me take Adventis Technologies to the next level, Luke,” Damian said. “With your mind and my leadership, we’re going to be unstoppable. We’ll create products the world has never seen before. How does that sound? I won’t hold you to the agreement we made in Fort Conway. You were desperate, I know. That prison wasn’t a worthy setting for any corporate transaction. But now we’re in the right kind of setting. I want you to be a part of Adventis, a vital part.”
“What will I receive in exchange?” Luke said.
“Money,” Damian said. “Lots of it. A title. A permanent residence here in the building. Your own car. Lots and lots of perks, Luke.”
“What if I … decline your offer?” Luke said.
Damian shrugged.
“There’s lots of police cars patrolling the city right now, Luke, looking for you. But right now you’re here, safe as anything behind the walls of my building. To be entirely frank, my position has secured me a lot of friends in the police force, Luke. But if you aren’t a part of Adventis, then I really don’t have a reason to help you out anymore. They’ve still got a room for you at Fort Conway.”
Luke’s eyes revealed nothing.
“Your new title will be my Director of New Technologies,” Damian said. “Do you accept?”
Chapter 12.
“I wanted the inside of Adventis to feel like a city into itself,” Damian said, as he, Carlie, and Luke walked down a long, sweeping hallway past hundreds of Adventis employees. “We’ve got a huge recreation division, with a tennis court, swimming pool, and racket ball courts, for employees to use whenever they want to unwind. We’ve got a state of the art dining room. And even an in-house theater that plays new releases. We use it for company presentations sometimes.”
Luke half-paid attention to him while scanning the faces of the Adventis employees around them. He detected a few androids among them, dressed in identical bright blue shirts that read “Adventis Technologies” on the front, and jeans.
“You see them, don’t you?” Damian said. “The androids in the blue shirts are test models from the Corporate Clone line. We’re seeing how they interact with our human employees, and vice versa.”
“What have the results been?” Luke said.
“Encouraging, but not perfect yet,” Damian said. “What time is my dinner with the governor, Carlie? And where?”
She consulted her iPad.
“6:30 at the Beverly Hilton.”
“Apple is extremely excited about what we’re doing,” Damian said. “They want to collaborate on a line of female androids called Siris. We’ve got partnerships lined up with Wal-Mart, Martha Stewart Living, Adidas, Volkswagen, Pepsi, and a number of other big names as well.”
“Impressive,” Luke said.
“But our primary focus will of course be our own company androids,” Damian said. “We’ve got twelve product lines in active production. You saw one of our Fantastic Domestics, specializing in housework, and the Corporate Clones, designed to fill staff shortages in any kind of corporation. You’ll see the rest of them in a few minutes.”
They rounded a corner and headed towards a small, elegant elevator lobby with see-through glass walls. Elevators that resembled glass boxes in glass-walled chutes moved up and down slowly behind the walls.
A tall, slender woman who looked like a model dressed in a dark gray business suit, her blond hair gathered in a bun and delicate glasses on her eyes, was waiting by the elevators.
She turned at their approach.
“What a superbly-timed coincidence,” Damian said. “Luke, this is Lina Calders. She’s one of the lead designers on our android lines.”
Lina took Luke’s hand.
“Charmed,” she said, with a slight obscure accent. She assessed Luke up and down without seeming to feel the need for tact.
“Wow. I thought you were exaggerating when you described him, Damian, but you weren’t. He’s unparalleled. I was sure we were the ones breaking new ground with our androids, but he’s a whole other level. You were designed by Argonaut Laboratories?”
“Yes,” Luke said. “And your accent suggests you’re from eastern Croatia.”
�
�I was born in Osejik,” Lina said. She looked unabashedly intrigued and impressed.
“I’ve just made Luke my Director of New Technologies, Lina,” Damian said. “You’ll be working closely with him.”
“How wonderful,” Lina said. “I can’t wait to start.”
Carlie looked subtly contemptuous.
The glass doors of the elevator opened and the four of them stepped inside. Damian pressed a button on the touchscreen elevator panel.
“We’re going to the fortieth floor,” he said as the elevator whisked upwards silently. “Product development division. The star of our show. Nobody can access floor forty without getting corporate permission first. Everything that goes on in P.D. is done in absolute confidentiality. Right, Lina?”
“Completely right,” Lina said. She was still studying Luke with steel-eyed fascination, looking as though she was valiantly restraining herself from frisking him with her hands.
“Ellen at the Sci Fi Channel just sent an email,” Carlie said, looking at her iPad. “She has some ideas to add to the list you sent her about the unveiling ceremony.”
“Tell her to send them over,” Damian said. “We’re in early discussions with the Sci Fi Channel for them to broadcast the launch ceremony for our android lines, Luke. Kind of an appropriate venue, don’t you think? Science fiction meets reality.”
“My experience with human television is limited,” Luke said. “But to me the words science fiction sound like a paradox.”
Damian laughed.
“What’s the latest update on the Hero Patrol line, Lina?” he said.
“It’s nearly completed and ready for testing,” Lina said. “We’ve delayed testing because we wanted to make sure the gun usage settings on the androids were accurate.”
“Of course,” Damian said. “Very important. But are any of them ready for us to show to Luke?”
“One of them is,” Lina said. “We all got your memo last night, and stayed in the building until four a.m. getting the androids ready. I barely had time to run back to my place and put my make-up on for today.” She laughed self-consciously.
The Android Chronicles Book One: The Android Defense Page 3