The Android Chronicles Book One: The Android Defense

by Marling Sloan

  Madrick drew in his breath.

  “I want to meet this android,” he said.

  “You and I both,” Gustaf said.

  Madrick folded his arms and leaned back in his chair.

  “Well, now that you’ve told me about this marvelous android, I guess the big question is now … can you make an android better, stronger, and more powerful than he is?”

  Gustaf met his eyes.

  “I think so.”

  Chapter 11.

  Carlie had pushed Damian out into the orchard in front of his villa so that he could get some fresh air before his physical therapy session began. Damian was engrossed in watching a sitcom on his touch screen and did not notice the huge flatbed truck that was pulling up the curved driveway.

  Carlie shaded her eyes.

  “Looks like your car’s here,” she said.

  Damian looked up.

  “Oh, man. Yes!” he said. He wheeled himself quickly towards the truck. Carlie followed him.

  The driver of the flatbed truck got out and carefully unloaded the new car. It was a sleek, black vehicle that vaguely resembled a rocket.

  Damian rolled himself around the car in a circle, admiring it from all different angles.

  “What do you think, Carlie?” he said.

  “It’s nice,” Carlie said. “And unnecessary. You have sixteen cars.”

  “And now I have seventeen,” Damian said. “I think I’ll name her after you.”

  “Please don’t.”

  Damian laughed.

  “How’s Elena working out?”

  “She’s … adequate,” Carlie said. She had taken Elena on a tour of the Adventis Building and had found Elena to be a placid observer and listener without ever asking a single question once.

  “Good,” Damian said. “I want adequate. She’s just supposed to be a prop, you know. I don’t want her to be as good as you.”

  Carlie had to smile.

  It was nearly eleven o’clock at night when Luke and Brigite had driven out to a Laundromat near the laboratory. Brigite carried a huge bag of her clothing and Luke a slightly smaller one.

  They walked into the Laundromat and stood in front of two of the machines. Luke fed quarters into the machines and began putting his clothes as well as Brigitte’s into it.

  Brigitte walked towards the soda vending machine near the doors and eyed the selection.

  “Want a soda, Luke?”” she said.

  “No,” Luke said. He continued putting his clothes into the washing machine.

  Brigite put a quarter into the machine and pushed one of the soda buttons. When nothing came out, she frowned. She hit the machine lightly.

  “Want any help, miss?”

  A heavily tattooed man with a large belly came near to her, with a sly grin.

  Brigite stepped away from him.

  “No, thanks.”

  He eyed her bright blue wig and her tight shirt and skirt. He reached out and tried to grab her arm.

  “Hey!” Brigite said.

  In a flash Luke was between her and the man.

  “She said she didn’t want your help,” Luke said.

  “Back off,” the man said. He pushed Luke roughly.

  Luke immediately grabbed the man’s arm and bent it behind him. The man screamed in pain.

  “Are you going to walk away now?” Luke said. “Or do I have to tear your arm off?”

  “I’ll walk away,” the man said, his face squeezed in pain.

  Luke let go of his arm. The man disappeared quickly.

  Luke turned to Brigite. In exasperation he grabbed one of his jackets and threw it over her shoulders.

  “No more trouble tonight,” he said. He placed his hand on the vending machine and administered a jolt of electricity to it. A soda can tumbled out and Luke handed it to Brigite.

  Chapter 13.

  “You’re cheating,” Damian said.

  He and Carlie were playing chess in his bedroom. Carlie was sitting in her chair and Damian was sitting in his wheelchair, wearing a loose shirt and flannel pants.

  “You’re just saying that because I’m winning so far,” Carlie said.

  Damian smiled.

  “Exactly. You’re cheating. There’s no way you could be beating me at this game.”

  “I’ve beat you the last three times in a row,” Carlie said.

  There was a knock on the door and the maid poked her head in.

  “There is someone at the door for you, Mr. Foster,” she said.

  “I’ll go see who it is,” Carlie said, getting up. “Don’t touch the board while I’m gone.”

  She left. Damian eyed the board and then thought better of it.

  Carlie was slightly surprised to see Elena at the door. Elena looked fresh and gorgeous in a pale dress and heels, a folder under her arm.

  “Elena. What can I do for you?” Carlie said.

  “Hello, Carlie,” Elena said. “I’m here to see Damian. Is he here?”

  “He is,” Carlie said. “Come with me.”

  Elena followed Carlie up the sweeping staircase and down the hall to Damian’s bedroom.

  As Elena came in Damian sat up in his wheelchair alertly and self-consciously brushed his hand through his chair.

  “Elena. What a surprise. I had no idea you were coming, or I would have put on some decent clothes,” he said. “I’m a mess.”

  “No,” Elena said. She smiled at him. “You look great. As usual.”

  Carlie moved a chair towards her.

  “Sit down.”

  “Thanks.” Elena sat.

  “What’s going on?” Damian said. He leaned back in his chair and eyed her legs. Carlie resisted the urge to slap the side of his head.

  “Oh, I just chanced stopping by to see if you were here. I’ve drawn up some ideas for the company, moving forward,” Elena said. She took a pad of paper out of her folder.

  Damian glanced at Carlie, who gave him a look of surprise.

  “Nice,” he said. “Tell me about them.”

  “Well, I’ve been reading up on Adventis’s history of products, especially going over the ones that made a big splash when they came out,” Elena said. “The ones that made a particularly big impact were the android lines. I know we’ve still got the Domestics and the Caregivers in circulation, but I was thinking … why don’t we bring back one more of the android lines, updated and upgraded? Just to show the competition that we’ve still got what it takes when it comes to building new technologies.”

  “It’s a good idea, but we’ve been muzzled by the Feds, Elena,” Damian said. “We can’t build any more androids for the market. I know we’ve still got the technology, which seems like a waste, but there it is.”

  “And you should have already known that, since I told you about it on the tour,” Carlie wanted to add, but she refrained.

  “Then if we have the technology and it’s of no use to us, why don’t we sell it to another company?” Elena said.

  Damian looked dumbfounded. It was Carlie who found the words.

  “We can’t sell our technology, Elena,” she said. “That’s like selling secrets.”

  “Adventis is made of secrets,” Damian said. “Take one out and the whole house collapses.”

  Elena nodded briskly.

  “Of course. I understand. But Adventis’s problem right now is image and advertising. We need to do something flashy and bold. Something that will catch people by surprise.”

  “Like an android circus,” Carlie said.

  Damian stared at her. Carlie was surprised as well at what she said. She reddened slightly.

  “I had a dream a few nights ago, about being in a circus, with androids all around me.”

  Damian was beginning to smile widely.

  “An android circus,” Elena said. “That’s fantastic. If we can’t sell androids, then we can organize a big display of them instead, open to the public. We don’t have to sell any of the androids, but we can at least display our newest technolog
ies and make a splash while we’re at it.”

  “That’s zany enough to possibly work,” Damian said. “And it’s definitely flashy.”

  He grinned at Carlie.

  “I should start asking you about your dreams more often.”

  “But it would have to be a real state of the art circus,” Carlie said. “With some serious tech minds involved and their names all over it so it’s not just some gimmick.”

  “Serious tech minds,” Damian said. “I think I know who to ask.”

  Chapter 14.

  “Where did you get all your knowledge about androids from?” Carel said.

  She was sitting beside Gustaf – her choice, not Gustaf’s – on the plane ride from New York City to the lab in Los Angeles where all five of the recruits were to begin their work.

  “From observation,” Gustaf said. “When you start looking at things more closely you begin to see that everything is a model of each other.”

  “That’s fascinating,” Carel said. “I never thought of it that way. You have such an unusual perspective on things. I always wondered, why did you hide yourself away in the mountains?”

  “For solitude,” Gustaf said. “I was not hiding. Hiding implies some kind of wrongdoing.”

  “Well, I’m glad you’re not in the mountains anymore,” Carel said. “I’ve always been a big city girl myself. My family moved around a lot.”

  “What made you decide you wanted to be a robotic engineer?” Gustaf said.

  “There’s something so refreshingly simple about robots,” Carel said. “They don’t question life, like we do. They just are. I envy robots, sometimes.”

  “I disagree with you,” Gustaf said. “I think androids are full of questions. The difference is they have the answers, and we don’t.”

  Mandelie was brushing her teeth when her phone rang on her sink. She picked up her phone and nearly swallowed toothpaste in her surprise to see the name on the caller ID.

  “Hello?” she said.

  “How are you, Mandelie?” Damian said.

  “I’m … fine,” Mandelie said. She had not spoken to Damian in months but she knew of course of his injury. Though she had no fond feelings for him, her conscience pricked her to be polite.

  “How are you doing?”

  “I’m fine,” Damian said. “Rolling along, so to speak. I was wondering if you could stop by my house, at some time today that’s convenient?”

  “Stop by your house?” Mandelie said. “Why?”

  “Don’t worry, I’m not going to try anything with you,” Damian said. “Maybe I would have done it a while ago, but things are slightly trickier for me now. Plus I can’t get out of the house so easily anymore, so most meetings for me take place at my house now.”

  “You’re charming as ever, Damian,” Mandelie said. “What is this all about?”

  “I won’t tell you over the phone, but it’s very important and I would be extremely appreciative if you could come and hear me out on it,” Damian said. “Will you?”

  Mandelie stifled a sigh. The last thing she wanted to do was to visit Damian Foster, but she felt trapped and unable to turn him down.

  “Alright. I can stop by in an hour.”

  “Great,” Damian said.

  Mandelie had never seen Damian’s palatial residence in Bel Air before, and despite herself, she was impressed by it. She walked up the front steps and rang the doorbell.

  The door was opened in a few moments by a maid, who showed her inside. Mandelie looked around her in awe and nearly forgot to follow the maid as she led her up the sweeping staircase.

  They walked down the slightly gloomy hallway and the maid knocked on the door of Damian’s room.

  “Come in,” Mandelie heard Damian say.

  The maid opened the door for Mandelie, who stepped inside.

  Mandelie had seen pictures of Damian’s handicapped state, but it was her first time seeing him in person and it was a jolt to her. She vividly remembered him as a teenager helping at her father’s lab and then as a magnetic CEO of a flourishing tech company.

  Damian did not seem as jolted by her appearance, though Mandelie did not know that he was secretly appreciating her casual, effortless prettiness in her jeans and shirt, her hair falling loosely around her shoulders.

  He rolled his wheelchair towards her and held out his hand.

  “Call it a truce, Miss Miles?”

  Mandelie had to smile. She shook his hand.

  “Truce.”

  “Thanks for coming,” Damian said. “It’s been a while since that day I saw you on the beach in your bikini, but I hold the memory sacred. If I could get it framed I probably would.”

  He indicated a chair set out for her. “Sit, please.”

  Mandelie sat and tried not to watch Damian too closely as he pushed himself to the balcony doors and shut one of them to keep too many breezes from blowing into the room. She had to admit that despite his handicap, he had not lost any of the undeniable handsomeness that had once made him seem so arrogant and easy to loathe. His hair was significantly longer and made him look like a medieval prince.

  “Want anything to drink?” Damian said. “Coconut margarita? Can you even drink legally yet?”

  “I’m twenty,” Mandelie said. “My birthday’s in a few months.”

  “I’ll make it nonalcoholic then,” Damian said. “But if you wanted to drink here, I won’t tell anyone.”

  “I’ll pass,” Mandelie said. She did not want her first drink to be at Damian Foster’s residence.

  Damian wheeled to a door in the wall that Mandelie had thought at first belonged to a closet or a bathroom. He opened it and she saw a long, state-of-the-art bar inside.

  “I had the bar put in after I got back from the hospital,” Damian said. “I spend a lot of time in here now, you know, and sometimes I need a drink.”

  “Isn’t it kind of a bad idea, having a bar in your room?” Mandelie said.

  “It’s like giving a loaded gun to a murderer,” Damian said. “But whenever I feel like I’m drinking too much I give the keys to the room to Carlie. Nothing worse than an alcoholic in a wheelchair.”

  Mandelie watched him concocting a drink for her with expertise. He came out of the bar a few minutes later and gave it to her in a frosted glass.

  Mandelie took a sip of the drink and found it to be good. Damian quenched himself with his own glass of bourbon.

  Mandelie felt the tension thick between them like a brick wall. Damian cleared his throat, evidently aware of it as well.

  “So the reason I asked you to come here today is -”

  “Damian,” Mandelie said. Somehow she felt compelled to say the words.

  “What?”

  “I just wanted to say I’m … sorry for not coming sooner to see you. I’m sorry about your accident. I know we’re not on the best terms and I have a lot of reasons to despise you, but none of it changes the fact that I’ve known you for a long time, and once there was a time when I liked you, really liked you as a friend. I don’t think the past really matters anymore, now. I just want you know that I wish you well. Despite everything.”

  Damian’s green eyes were inscrutable.

  “Thank you,” he finally said. “I never expected to hear you say that. But it means a lot to me, especially coming from you.”

  Still Mandelie felt the distance between them, the inevitable clash between Damian’s wildly spinning moral compass and her own carefully guarded one.

  “How’s Brigite doing?” Damian said.

  “She’s great,” Mandelie said. “She’s sort of dating the receptionist at my dad’s lab. His name is Jake.”

  Damian took another sip of bourbon.

  “Good for him,” he said. “I miss seeing her around sometimes. She gives the best erotic massages. I really recommend them. Tell Jake that.”

  He smiled.

  “So why did you want me to come here?” Mandelie said.

  “I wanted to ask you for a favor,” Damian s
aid. “For your help and your involvement in a new Adventis undertaking.”

  “It doesn’t have anything to do with androids, I hope,” Mandelie said.

  “It concerns androids, but not in the way you think,” Damian said. “There’s a new company that’s looking to knock Adventis out of the android market. It’s called Frontier. Heard of it?”

  “No,” Mandelie said. Damian looked slightly pleased.

  “It’s run by this blowhard named Madrick Castleshank. I know, what a name, right? Madrick’s got an appetite for bloody corporate tactics like a bull shark. You may not believe it, but he makes me look like a saint. Anyway, he’s determined to make his company the biggest, flashiest tech company around and chew Adventis up into dust. And I’m not going to let that happen while I have a breath in my body.”

  “So what do you need me for?” Mandelie said.

  “I’ve got a wild idea that I want to make into a reality,” Damian said. “I’m putting together an android circus. A display of all of Adventis’s newest android technologies, as well as its older favorites like the X-droids and the Fantastic Domestics. It’ll be open to the public for the price of admission. I want it to be flashy and over-the-top, for sure, but I want it to be state of the art and intelligent too. That’s where I want your help. Yours and Luke’s and Brigite’s. I’d love for the three of you to be involved. And I’d like your father to curate the whole thing for me.”

  “An android circus,” Mandelie said. “Are you really serious?”

  “I’m dead serious,” Damian said. “I know it’ll be huge.”

  “It sounds unbelievable,” Mandelie said. “But I have to say it sounds like you, Damian.”

  Damian grinned.

  “You and your father will be compensated, of course. Generously. Luke too, if he’s interested in the cash. I don’t know about Brigite, but if she’s goes on display I’m sure she’ll pick up plenty of dollars.”