The Android Chronicles Book One: The Android Defense

by Marling Sloan

  “Send out one of your glorious memos,” Damian said. “Not expecting me. I’m the mind and the face of Adventis. Who else do they expect? Santa Claus?”

  Jake and Brigite sat in an ice cream parlor inside the miniature golf park, sharing a banana split.

  “You’re doing great, Brigite,” Jake said. “We’re really close to winning that giant stuffed alligator you saw on the way in.”

  Brigite spooned ice cream.

  “Jake, why don’t you like me?”

  Jake choked on his mouthful of ice cream.

  “Um … of course I like you, Brigite. What makes you think I don’t?”

  Brigite played with her spoon.

  “Well, you never let me set up my pole in your living room. You don’t let me give you any lap dances. And when I tried to take you shopping at the Naughty Toy Emporium, you ran out the door after five minutes.”

  “So you think I don’t like you?” Jake said. “I really, really like you Brigite. I just don’t want to be like all the other guys you’ve had to entertain. You know. The ones who just treat you like a robot stripper. I want to be different from them.”

  “You are different, Jake,” Brigite said. “You’re not like them. Trust me. You don’t have to be worried about making me feel uncomfortable. Whatever you want from me, just ask. I want to make all your fantasies come true.”

  Jake was speechless.

  “It’s getting harder and harder for me to feel okay about you sleeping in the lab,” Mandelie said. She and Luke were alone in the lab, after both Dr. Miles and Trista had left.

  Luke smiled.

  “Why is that hard for you? I’m an android. I don’t need a house.”

  “So you’re fine with sleeping on a cot in the back room of the lab?” Mandelie said.

  “I’m fine with it,” Luke said. “Your father installed a shower in the restroom of the laboratory. I’ve got all my needs met.”

  “Okay. I thought I heard Brigite saying she was tired of sleeping in the laboratory, so I wanted to see how you felt about it,” Mandelie said. “But Jake was around when she said it, so maybe she was just trying to prod him into … something sexual.”

  “Brigite’s never said anything to me,” Luke said.

  “Well, just tell me if you get sick of it,” Mandelie said. “You can always stay with me.”

  “Of course,” Luke said. “Thank you.”

  Mandelie kissed him and then she left the lab.

  Chapter 5.

  Mealtimes at the Castleshank manor in upstate New York were never a joyous affair. Rochelle Castleshank, Madrick’s wife, was two decades younger than he was, his former secretary, and beginning to realize what a mistake she had made when she had accepted Madrick’s drunken proposal during a company retreat in Las Vegas.

  She sat across a long shining oak table from Madrick in the expensively decorated dining room of their Georgian style mansion, listlessly toying with her food and drinking copious amounts of red wine. Madrick did not even seem to notice she was there. He was having a conversation on his phone, in between harassing their butler.

  “I want the best tech engineers there are, Dale, the best in the country. James, I told you, I want the steak bloody! If you bring me one more charred ribeye, I swear I’ll drop it down the front of your pants. What did you say, Dale? Yeah, I want the very best engineers, ones with big ole’ grand ideas for some groundbreaking androids. I want to give the world a heart attack, Dale. James, get me another tequila, when you’re done topping off her glass. Yeah, yeah, I know you’ll do your best. Let me know when you’ve got ‘em.”

  “Let’s go see a show on Broadway, Madrick,” Rochelle said, when Madrick had hung up. “You’ve been promising me for weeks.”

  “I never promised to take you to any show on Broadway,” Madrick said. “You’ve been drinking too much. Just turn on the television and watch a soap opera or something.”

  Luke was lying on his cot in a back room of the laboratory when he heard the front door open and Brigite enter loudly on her platform heeled sneakers. He stretched out and placed his arms behind his head, listening as she walked noisily down the hallway and then came into their shared room.

  His vision adjusted for the darkness automatically and he saw her shadowy form lean down, take off her heels, and then fling them carelessly near her cot, where they joined the mess of clutter on her side of the room. Though she had a wheeled clothing rack Luke had procured for her as well as for himself from a department store, she never used it. Her inexhaustible collection of skimpy clothing and lingerie was tossed all around instead, mingling with her dozens of stuffed animals and scented candles that she was constantly burning and forgetting. Luke was endlessly finding them and extinguishing them before the laboratory was burned to the ground.

  His side of the room was militarily clean and ordered, his clothes hung up in straight rows on the rack, his toiletries stacked in a clear box beside his bed. The room was sliced in half without any line needed to be drawn down the middle of it, between chaos and cleanliness.

  “How did you enjoy miniature golf?” Luke said, as Brigite took off her bikini and shorts, and donned her favorite sheer negligee.

  “You lied,” Brigite said. “Miniature golf is not at all thrilling.”

  Luke smiled.

  Brigite fluffed her blue hair before she crawled into her own cot.

  “But at least I finally told Jake how I much I wished he would just let me give him a lap dance already. I can’t believe I sat through four movies, twelve hours of Grand Theft Auto, and three hours of miniature golf before I put my foot down.”

  “Humans often need to be coaxed into what’s best for them,” Luke said.

  “Tell me about it,” Brigite said, pulling her silk blanket up to her chin and her cucumber mask over her eyes.

  Mandelie let herself through the door of her modest one-bedroom apartment in Malibu, not expecting to see anyone in her living room. She narrowed her eyes when she saw the television was turned on.

  A dreadlocked head peered up over her couch at her. Jake yawned, rubbing sleep from his eyes.

  “Jake, what are you doing here?” Mandelie said.

  “Sorry,” Jake said, looking chagrined. “Your place was on the way back from the mini-golf place and I needed a place to chill in peace and quiet, without my four roommates all trying to talk to me at once. I guess I must have fallen asleep.”

  “How did you get in?”

  “I still have a copy of your key from the time you needed me to water your plants,” Jake said.

  “Which you drowned, by the way,” Mandelie said. She put her bag down on her kitchen table and joined him on the couch.

  “How was the golf date with Brigite?”

  “Oh, um, it was okay,” Jake said, turning red. “Well, not the golf part, she hated that part. But she did come right out and tell me she wanted to make all my fantasies come true.”

  Mandelie laughed.

  “She’s just so much to handle all at the same time,” Jake said. “I mean, it’s like I’m faced with my dream girl, and I’m the loser that can’t figure out what to say to her. I’ve never been like this with any girl before.”

  “You’re not a loser, Jake,” Mandelie said. “You’re just trying to be a good guy. Because you are a good guy, and she gets that. Don’t worry about it so much. Just be yourself, and let Brigite be herself.”

  “Thanks,” Jake said. “I’ll take your word for it. I mean, your thing with Luke is going pretty good. Can I crash here tonight? I’m way tired.”

  “Sure,” Mandelie said. “As long as you make pancakes in the morning.”

  “Right on.”

  Chapter 6.

  Luke’s internal alarm went off at eight the next morning. He quietly got out of his cot. Brigite awoke from her sleep state a half hour after he did, in order to give Luke time in the shower first.

  He showered quickly, in efficient time as he usually did, in the bathroom that had been added
to the laboratory just for the androids. He put on a loose shirt, jeans, and running shoes. As he emerged from the bathroom Brigite marched past him, her blue hair somewhat rumpled, holding her towel and her vanilla scented body soap. Luke neatly pulled a candle out of her arm.

  “One of these days you’re going to set yourself on fire. Yourself or the lab,” he said.

  “That’s Honey Mist,” Brigite said. “I like the bathroom to smell good while I’m taking a shower in it.”

  “You have got twenty two different varieties of scented soap,” Luke said. “One missing candle isn’t going to make a difference.”

  He walked down the hallway of the lab and nearly ran into Trista, who looked decidedly grouchier than she usually did.

  “Hello, Trista,” Luke said.

  “Hey, Luke,” Trista said. She exhaled and began turning on lights in all of the rooms in the hallway.

  “What’s wrong?” Luke said.

  “I’m counting the days until my relatives get out of town,” Trista said. “My cousin is a five-year-old demon. And apparently I’m supposed to be his babysitter, while my aunts and uncles go to Disneyland three times in a row.”

  She shook her head and began pouring herself a cup of coffee in the laboratory break room.

  “Do you mind getting the electrical vest out and setting it on the mannequin, Luke? And also booting up the Mind Portal machine?”

  “Not at all,” Luke said.

  The black shining limousine pulled up in front of the Four Seasons hotel. Carlie got out of the passenger seat and immediately walked to the trunk of the car. She removed Damian’s wheelchair from it and placed it in front of the car.

  The chauffeur opened the passenger door of the car and a set of titanium crutches appeared. Damian dragged himself out, leaning on the crutches. He wore a white shirt, shining blue tie, and dark trousers.

  Carlie quickly pushed the wheelchair to him and he sat down. He gave his crutches to the chauffeur.

  “I’ll be waiting out here, Mr. Foster,” the chauffeur said.

  Carlie pushed Damian into the hotel. As they entered the lobby a concierge immediately greeted them.

  “Hello, Miss Wesler. Hello, Mr. Foster. The ballroom is this way.”

  Carlie and Damian followed him to one of the ballrooms in the lobby of the hotel. He opened the door and they went in.

  The sumptuous ballroom had been converted into a meeting room for the one hundred board members of Adventis Technologies. They were all serious-faced men in business suits.

  There had been loud conversation going on in the room but as Carlie and Damian entered it immediately fell silent.

  One of the board members, a man named Paul Shafer, stood from his chair. He began to clap. The other board members began clapping as well, until they were all giving a standing ovation to Damian.

  “Thanks,” Damian said. “Thanks.”

  Despite the applause, the faces of the board members were skeptical and Damian did not miss it.

  “Okay,” he said, after a moment. “Everybody sit down. I’m already seated, so everyone else just join me.”

  There was light laughter from everyone present.

  “I know I haven’t been at one of these things for a while,” Damian said. “You’ll have to forgive me. I’ve been logging insane hours of physical therapy. But as some of you might know, the climate has recently changed. Frontier Corp. is hungry for a piece of the action. For a piece of our market share on androids.”

  “We don’t have many active android lines in production, Damian,” Paul said. “Just the Fantastic Domestics and the Tender Loving Caregivers.”

  “Right,” Damian said. “The only ones the FBI will let us produce. But we’ve still got the technology for the androids. That’s what Frontier is hoping to replicate.”

  “Now might as well be a good a time as any to address the elephant in the room, Damian,” another board member said. He stood.

  “Adventis is trading at the lowest price than it has ever been. Our products are throwing doubt into our shareholders. Baby monitors, automated lawn chairs, kid’s toys? Where’s the attitude this company started with? Where’s the bite? Frankly, some of the board members are beginning to think you’re losing your touch, Damian. Letting things slide.”

  Many of the other board members were nodding in agreement.

  “I admit I haven’t been as present as I was able to be before,” Damian said. “Maybe the company has watered down its products, a little bit. Tamed things. But we should consider it a necessary step back. We need to recover our reputation. Let’s not forget we nearly destroyed the city when we had our attitude going.”

  “You did,” a board member said. “You did, Damian. Not us. You operated outside of company knowledge.”

  Damian exhaled.

  “Alright, I did.”

  “Sure, the company made a mistake,” Paul said. “But that doesn’t mean we should go back on the promise we made to our shareholders. We promised we were going to be a cutting edge company. Lately we’ve been more of a blunt edged company. And there’s a lot of knives getting sharpened.”

  “We’re not taking your injury lightly, Damian,” another board member said. “Maybe the company is too much of a workload for you right now. Maybe we should appoint someone to help take some of that burden off your shoulders, at this time.”

  “You’re forgetting about the clause I put into the company’s founding plan,” Damian said. “I can’t be removed from my position without my consent.”

  The board members looked at each other.

  “I guess it’s a question of whether you feel the ship should go down with its captain, Damian,” Paul said.

  “Alright, the game is on! Team Jake versus Team Miles!” Jake said at the top of his voice.

  He threw a football at Luke, who caught it from the opposite side of the parking lot. Brigite was standing in between them, dressed in a lime green tank dress and four-inch sparkling heels, looking at once bemused and confused.

  Mandelie, Dr. Miles, and Trista were warming up on their side of the parking lot. Mandelie eyed Luke. She teasingly took a handful of asphalt dust and painted two dark streaks on her cheeks.

  “Sure you’re ready for this?” she said.

  “I’m very sure,” Luke said.

  Trista was trying to touch the tips of her toes with an effort, while Dr. Miles was running in place.

  Jake tossed the football up and down.

  “Can you run in those shoes, Brig?” he said.

  Brigite scoffed.

  “I climb up and down poles in these shoes, Jake.”

  “Point taken,” Jake said. “Alright, let’s toss a coin to see who gets the kickoff.”

  He took a quarter out of his pocket.

  “Heads,” he said.

  “Tails,” Mandelie said.

  Jake tossed the quarter and it landed on the ground. He picked it up.

  “Tails,” he said.

  “Yes!” Mandelie said. She took the football from Jake and ran backwards. She threw the football.

  It sailed through the air and barely missed Trista’s hands. Luke tackled Trista, who shrieked and dropped the football.

  Jake swooped in and grabbed it.

  “Go, Brig, go!” he shouted at her.

  Brigite raced to the opposite end of the parking lot, moving surprisingly fast on her heels. The ball sailed through the air and Brigite jumped up and caught it.

  She beamed triumphantly.

  “Touchdown!” Jake said. He rushed in and picked Brigite up and swung her around.

  Chapter 7.

  Gustaf Jorg had a reputation for being isolated and misanthropic almost as known as his reputation for brilliance in the field of robotic engineering. He had begun his career by designing an android that had successfully tunneled into an avalanche in the Himalayas and saved four hikers. He had followed that success by joining a world-famous magic show and designing robotic stage props for the performers, and then
by overseeing the construction of an automated ship piloted by robots that crossed the Bering Strait.

  Despite his colorful achievements he was colorless and brusque in his appearance and manner – a long, pale man with pale hair and even paler eyes. Soon after the ship was built he had announced that he was taking a break and had retreated to a cabin in the mountains of Colorado, venturing down to his office in Boulder only occasionally to collect his mail and speak to his staff.

  On a windy Thursday evening he stopped by the office where his assistant Ruth timidly approached him as he was getting his mail.

  “There’s a headhunter here to see you.”

  Gustaf turned his head to see a somber-suited man standing in the waiting room of his office. The man carried a briefcase that was stamped with the words “Frontier Corp.”

  Tucking his mail under his arm, Gustaf walked up to the man and extended his hand.

  “You wished to see me? I am Gustaf Jorg.”

  “Mr. Jorg,” the man said. “What an honor this is. My name is Matt Darmer. I’m here with a job offer.”

  “From whom?” Gustaf said.

  “Frontier Corp.”

  “I’ve never heard of them,” Gustaf said.

  Matt chuckled.

  “Well, they’ve heard of you. The CEO, Madrick Castleshank, is extremely impressed with your feats as a robotic engineer. He’s looking to transform Frontier into a leading manufacturer and designer of androids. He wants you to be on his team.”

  Carlie knocked lightly on the door of Damian’s bedroom. When she heard no answer, she went in.

  She saw Damian leaning back in his wheelchair, staring at one of his touch screens. Soft, soothing music was flowing out of the speakers on his wheelchair.

  “The company thinks I’m losing my touch,” Damian said, without looking at her. “Meanwhile I’m sitting in my wheelchair, listening to New Age, watching … cartoons.”