In a few minutes Tony came into the room, carrying the requested instruments.
Lina took the scanner – a small tool that looked like a flashlight – and moved it over Luke’s back. She paused when the tool beeped.
“The bullet’s here,” she said. “Give me the multi-tool, Tony.”
Tony gave it to her. Lina pressed a button on the tool and a small incisive blade popped out of it.
“I’m cutting a hole in your back,” Lina said to Luke. “Don’t move.”
Luke stood extremely still as Lina cut through the skin on his back, all the way to the metal console plate beneath it. She pressed a button on the multi-tool, and a plier came out of it. She used the plier to pull an embedded bullet out of a corner of the console plate.
“I’ve got it,” she said. She dropped the bullet on the ground, and then used the tube of flesh glue to glue Luke’s skin back over his console plate.
“Thanks,” Luke said.
“Now lie down,” Lina said.
Luke lay on the conveyor belt stretching out from the machine. Lina carefully arranged his posture more closely and then pressed a button on the side of the machine.
“Just close your eyes,” she said. “It’s like an X-ray for humans.”
The conveyor belt moved forward until Luke vanished inside the machine.
Lina looked at the computer screen on the side of the machine as Luke’s internal mechanisms in their entirety were displayed. Her eyes widened slightly.
“Incredible,” she said.
Chapter 15.
Mandelie and Trista stood in front of the desolate gray building that had once been a thriving lab and was now a crime scene. Pieces of torn yellow police tape were strewn around them. A cold salty wind blew over their heads, like a taunting ghost.
Mandelie sighed. She wore a plain gray sweatshirt over her denim shorts. Her hair was disheveled, falling around her face in messy waves.
“I’m a little scared to go inside,” she said.
“Well, we have to,” Trista said.
The two of them looked at each other, both seemingly frozen to their spots. Then they heard a footstep behind them. They both whirled around.
Jake stood behind them, looking uncertain and somber. His dreadlocks tumbled around his shoulders and he wore a dark shirt instead of his usual bright logo ones.
“Hey,” he said.
“Jake!” Mandelie said. She gave him a ferocious hug, as did Trista.
“I can’t believe what’s happened,” Jake said. “Like, it’s insane. It doesn’t make any sense.”
“No,” Mandelie said. “It doesn’t. That’s why I want to see if there’s anything in the lab that could explain something.”
“Good idea,” Jake said. “I want to help you guys look too.”
“Three’s better than two,” Trista said.
The three of them walked hesitantly to the small front door of the lab. Mandelie pushed it open, half-expecting something to run out of the darkness at her.
They walked into the small lobby. The cheerful pale blue paint did not look cheerful anymore. It looked faded and ghostly in the dim flickering light after Trista turned on the light switch.
“The lights were working alright before,” she said.
Mandelie paled when she saw a patch of dark red color on the wall.
“That’s blood,” she whispered.
“Holy crap,” Jake said. “Don’t look, Mands.”
Mandelie tore her eyes away from the patch and the three of them walked down the hallway where the experiment rooms were.
“Room 1,” Trista said in a low voice. “The Mind Portal project. I hope … I hope the police didn’t dismantle it or do anything to it.”
She opened the door slowly. The three of them looked inside.
There was nothing inside the room but a huge rectangular box standing upright against the wall, looking like a coffin. It was made of a strange, reflective green plastic material. There were wires leading out of the bottom of the box, connected to the wall.
“Look inside it, Trista,” Mandelie said.
Trista was already attempting to open the lid of the box, but it was extremely heavy. Mandelie and Jake both tried to open it as well.
“That’s weird,” Trista said, panting. “It’s never felt that heavy before. It almost feels like there’s some kind of magnetic force pulling down on it, keeping it closed.”
After a few more attempts, the three of them stopped trying to open the box.
“Well, at least it still looks like it’s in one piece,” Trista said. She wiped sweat from her face.
“Let’s look at the other rooms,” Jake said.
They left room 1 and checked inside the other rooms. They were all stripped of their contents, left bare except for furniture.
“Those cops must have taken everything for evidence,” Trista said in disgust. “They even took the anti-gravity shoes.”
“Um … no they didn’t,” Jake said. “I’ve got them.”
“You do!” Mandelie said.
“Well, your dad wanted me to test them out in my free time,” Jake said. “So I took them home with me. I told him I’d bring them back the next day. They’re at my place.”
Trista looked relieved.
“The other ongoing projects were minor by comparison,” she said. “It’s the Mind Portal and the anti-gravity shoes that really matter.”
“But we can’t look for clues if the cops took everything,” Jake said.
“Keep looking,” Mandelie said. “We’ll find something. Something the cops overlooked.”
Chapter 16.
“Your five thirty meeting is here,” Carlie said. She looked down at the appointment notes on her iPad, noting that the meeting was labeled only “CONFIDENTIAL V.I.P.”
“Good,” Damian said. He was sitting behind his desk, while Brigite massaged his shoulders. He waved her away curtly.
“Go back to floor forty,” he said.
“Yes, sir,” Brigite said. She left the room.
“You too, Carlie,” Damian said. “I’ll call you when you can come back.”
Carlie disappeared as well.
When she was gone, the elevator doors opened and a man in a dark, expensive-looking suit stepped out. He had white hair and a sharp, sallow face.
Damian walked towards him and held out his hand.
“Glad you could make it.”
“Of course,” the man said. “This is an important occasion.” His voice was raspy, with a hint of a European accent.
“Let’s sit down on the couches,” Damian said.
He and the man sat down on the couches in the sitting area.
The man leveled cold blue eyes on Damian.
“We’ve been keeping tabs on the progress of your androids,” he said. “We’re impressed.”
“Good,” Damian said. “They’re supposed to impress.”
The man leaned back against the couch and clasped his hands together.
“We’re prepared to open our coffers to you, and our network of influencers all over the world. But our involvement won’t come without a price. You know what that price is.”
“I know what it is,” Damian said. “And I’m prepared to meet it.”
The man studied him hard.
“You do want to change the world,” he said. “But perhaps not in the way that the world thinks.”
Damian smiled.
Brigite hurried back to the fortieth floor from Damian’s office, running up the stairs in her skimpy red bikini. Her steps echoed in the white marble stairwell. She heard a door slam behind her and then suddenly she felt a hand grab her neck and swing her against the wall.
Tony del Travio stood in front of her, with a twisted smile.
“Where’ve you been, Brigite? I was running diagnostics on all the other X-droids, but I didn’t see you in the line-up.”
“I was attending to Mr. Foster,” Brigite said.
“Mr. Foster, Mr. Foster,�
� Tony mimicked. He grabbed her and yanked at her bikini top.
Brigite screamed. Her scream echoed in the stairs.
“Quiet,” Tony said, covering her mouth with his hand. “There’s no use fighting, Brigite. I disabled your shock system while you were sleeping.”
Brigite stared at him.
Suddenly a strong arm locked around Tony’s neck and dragged him away from Brigite. Tony gasped for breath.
“If I ever see you try something like that again, you’re dead,” Luke said to him in his ear, quietly. “Do you understand?”
“Y – Yes,” Tony tried to say. He waved his arms for emphasis.
Luke let him go. Tony stumbled down the stairs, but not without casting a hateful look at Luke.
Luke turned to Brigite.
“Are you okay?”
Brigite nodded. She gathered her fallen bikini top and pressed it against herself. She tried to smooth her tangled bright blue hair.
“Thank you,” she said.
“Come on,” Luke said, taking her arm. “I’ll take you back up to floor forty.”
Chapter 17.
“So I thought we might be able to begin by making a review of the Super Soldiers,” Lina said. “You can meet the other product designers as well. But the Super Soldiers are a good place to start because they’ve been having some maintenance issues. You might have some ideas on how to fix them.”
She and Luke were walking down the long white hallway in Product Development. Ahead of them there were three people huddled in a group, talking among themselves.
“Hey guys!” Lina called to them. “Meet Luke!”
The three designers turned towards them. One of them was a tall, thin, angular woman with iron-gray hair cut in a severe fringe. One was a short bearded man with a visible stomach. The third was a brown-haired, round-faced girl with extremely thick glasses.
“This is Melinda Darts,” Lina said, indicating the tall gray-haired woman. “Joe Alvin, and Ledia Halsen. They’re the three designers on the android lines, besides me.”
The three people shook Luke’s hand with immense interest.
“The three of us had a chance to look at the data read outs from your imaging session, Luke,” Joe said. “It floored us, everything that went into making you. Your designer was a genius.”
“He is,” Luke said.
“Is,” Joe said. “Can’t give up hope, right?”
“I told Luke we’d start out by showing him the progress on the Super Soldiers,” Lina said. “And the kinks.”
“Right-o,” Ledia said. “Sounds good. Let’s go. Captain Mercenare is at the stage where he’s ready to interact.”
Luke followed the four designers down the hall until they came to a room with a visible window in the wall. Through the window Luke could see a tall android with a fierce-looking face and a military shaved head. He wore head to toe camouflage and was standing next to two technicians as they examined him closely with tools.
Lina opened the door and they went in.
The android immediately raised his head and looked directly at Luke. There was something in his eyes other than the blank expressions of the other androids. It was ferocity and cunning.
“Luke, meet Captain Martin Mercenare,” Lina said. “Mercenare for short.”
Luke locked eyes with Mercenare who eyed him coldly.
“I can see that he is an android,” he said. “But he’s not one of the Adventis androids.”
“No,” Lina said. “Luke was built somewhere else.”
“He’s here to take a look at you, Martin,” Ledia said. “And the other Super Soldiers. We’re trying to figure out how to make all of you capable of withstanding an explosive attack, harsh weather, in short, how to make all of you combat-ready.”
“My soldiers are all ready for combat,” Mercenare said. “We need no … outside interference.”
“The Super Soldiers were programmed to be tough and hard,” Lina said in an undertone to Luke. “We think it may have also affected their programming in other ways. Especially Martin’s. It’s a good thing he’s programmed to obey orders, otherwise we might all be in big trouble.”
Mercenare yanked his arm out of the grasp of one of the technicians.
“Why am I here? There’s no reason for it,” he said. “All day long, prod and poke, that’s all you humans do.”
“He’s not combat ready,” Luke said. “He needs an armored exterior. That would go a long way towards his improvement.”
Mercenare threw his head back and laughed.
“Aren’t you the smart android! An armored exterior? Perhaps your head is in need of an armored exterior, before I break it open and smash its contents on the floor.”
“Try it,” Luke said, with a provoking smile.
Mercenare tried to lunge at him, but the technicians held him back.
“Okay,” Ledia said. “Maybe we should leave Martin alone to calm down for a few minutes.”
“I am calm,” Mercenare said. He resumed his still, haughty posture, though his eyes flickered threateningly. “What rank does this android hold? What gives him the right to voice his opinion?”
“He outranks you, Martin,” Joe said. “You’d be better off restraining yourself when you’re around him.”
Mercenare looked furious but he did not move.
“But no Adventis android outranks me,” he said quietly.
“No, you’re top dog around here,” one of the technicians said, in a bored voice.
“So, an armored exterior,” Lina said, making a note on her clipboard. “What else do you suggest?”
“If you cut him open, perhaps I will have more suggestions,” Luke said.
Captain Martin snarled audibly.
“Maybe I’ll just show you his imaging readings,” Lina said. “They’re back in my office. Let’s move on to the next task at hand.”
Chapter 18.
Luke was slightly relieved when he returned to his room after his time on the product development floor was over and saw that Miranda was not there. He immediately took off his shoes and stretched out on his four-poster bed, the first time he had been able to make use of it.
He closed his eyes and accessed his communication console. He touched the inside of his wrist and the hologram keyboard appeared above him. He began typing a message.
“Miss Miles.”
He sent the message.
After a moment Mandelie’s message came to him.
“How are you doing, Luke?”
“Well enough, I guess. I’ve just been helping Adventis improve their android technology. How are you?” Luke said.
“Okay,” Mandelie said. “Trista, Jake, and I finally got into the lab. We went there looking for clues to what might have happened to my dad, but we didn’t find anything. Do you know why the Mind Portal box isn’t opening?”
“No,” Luke said. “It should open easily.”
“It’s not,” Mandelie said. “Something’s keeping the lid stuck.”
“That is strange.”
“I’m beginning to feel a little hopeless,” Mandelie said. “The police are acting like they’ve given up looking for my father. I don’t know what to do.”
“Come to Adventis,” Luke said. “On a visit. We can talk, face to face.”
“How is that possible?”
“Tomorrow, three o’clock,” Luke said. “Wear sunglasses and some kind of disguise. I will meet you in front of the glass front doors of the building.”
“Okay,” Mandelie said. “Let’s hope it works. Good night, Luke.”
“Good night, Miss Miles.”
Luke opened his eyes as his communication console blinked. He tried to remain awake, but the softness of the sheets beneath him activated his sleep state and he drifted to sleep.
“So how’s the learning curve with Luke going?” Damian said, taking a sip from his glass of brandy as he eyed Lina, sitting across the table from him. All around them, waiters in white uniform floated around the conf
ines of Da Silvano.
Lina smirked. She looked more like a model than ever in her long, softly shimmering black dress, her blond hair falling around her face.
“You mean his learning curve, or mine?”
Damian smiled.
“Yours, of course.”
Lina laughed, in a slightly tipsy way.
“I’m going to pretend I didn’t even hear that. But he’s quite impressive, of course. He looked at five of our product lines today and gave me a list of possible upgrades for them, off the top of his head.”
“Good,” Damian said. “He’s keeping up his end of the bargain.”
“He’s hot too,” Lina said, with an alcohol-fueled smile. “Like, really hot.”
“Don’t get too close to him,” Damian said. There was a warning in his voice. “He’s an android. I’m your boss.”
“Who could forget?” Lina said, and hiccupped.
Luke awoke at his usual time of eight o’clock in the morning, as his internal alarm went off. He shut it off and rose from the bed. The electric current running through him began to warm up.
He went into the bathroom and took a long shower. He emerged from it with a towel wrapped around his waist. He opened the door and nearly dropped his towel in surprise when Miranda walked right into him, carrying a box of soap which fell out of her arms.
“Oh! I’m sorry, sir,” she said. “I was bringing you some new soap for the bathroom. I didn’t know you were in it.”
Luke sighed.
“It’s alright,” he said. “Go ahead.”
He walked into his dressing room and shut the door behind him, locking it securely. He pulled on a dark blue sweater and dark jeans. When he was fully dressed he emerged and saw Miranda setting his breakfast plates carefully on the table.
“Adventis didn’t lie when they said the Fantastic Domestics were unfailing in their duties,” Luke said, sitting down on the couch.
Miranda beamed.
“I never fail in my duties, sir.”
“If you don’t mind me asking, how long have you been in existence?” Luke said.
The Android Chronicles Book One: The Android Defense Page 5