Artificial

by Jadah McCoy

  I refuse to meet his penetrating black gaze, and the gray wall fills my vision. I would rather stare at the blankness for a thousand years than have to look at him ever again.

  He doesn’t wait long for my answer. “An expanse of human flesh beneath my fingers. A handful of blue hair.”

  I can’t help it. I turn back to him, full of sharp ice and bitter hatred.

  “Nice trick, by the way. Hiding her right in front of me. How stupid I must be!” He laughs heartily, but it isn’t a happy laugh.

  He must like the reaction he sees in me because a mischievous fire lights behind his dark stare.

  “Humans are so interesting,” he says. “A veritable playground of pain and pleasure, one blending seamlessly into the other. We were created in their image, but we are not like them. Not at all.”

  He comes closer and brushes hair from my eyes, tucking it behind my right ear. I jerk away from his touch, and he smiles as his hand falls back to his side.

  “They are so very fragile. Cut too deeply, they bleed to death. Deprive them of oxygen for too long, they suffocate. Turn the neck too far to one side, it snaps and they die.” He frowns. “Fragile and inefficient.”

  “You must love hearing the sound of your own voice.”

  “I have other voices if you’d rather hear those. How do you like this one?” he says in a perfect imitation of Michelo’s tone.

  “Or maybe you prefer this.” He speaks in Syl’s voice. Lexion comes closer, pressing himself against my chest, and holds his lips to my ear as he whispers in her voice, “Bastion, I’ve waited so long. Take me.”

  He collapses in a fit of giggles, slapping his hands against his knees in amusement, and I can do nothing but stare blankly at him. Telling him to stop, getting angry, will just make it worse. He’d love nothing more than to be able to truly shake me.

  The threat is there, clear to see. He knows. I don’t know if he knows everything, but whatever he does know… it’s enough.

  “What do you want from me?” I ask. “I don’t think you brought me here for a quick chat.”

  He sits in a chair beside the table, a happy smile still on his face, and crosses one leg over the other. He looks at a nail, tapping his toe against the leg of the table. “What makes you think that? I’m quite enjoying watching you squirm.”

  “If you are going to discontinue my model, then do it.”

  He looks thoughtful for a moment, then holds up a finger.

  “No. Let me tell you what I’m going to do.” He’s calm as he looks up at me. “First, I’m going to take that Glitch whore’s body and hang it up for all of New Elite to see. Then I’ll do the same to Michelo after I’ve destroyed that tacky little shop of his. One by one, I’ll pick each of you inefficient, outdated, malfunctioning models off.”

  A predator’s grin spreads across his face.

  “But not you. No, maybe I’ll wait until you’re the very last one.” He stands again. “Or maybe I won’t kill you at all. The most exquisite torture—living in a world where no one thinks like you do. I could put out a decree that no one is to harm you. You’d last forever. Alone. It would be unbearable.”

  He grabs a knife from the table and saunters over until he stands in front of me, so close I can sense his electromagnetic field in my own. He trails the knife over my nose, lips, down my chest. He stops at my stomach and jabs me with the point. My neurons pick up the damage to my outer layer and convert it to pain. I subdue the cringe that comes to my face, trying my best not to give him anything to feed off.

  “Or maybe I’ll just get rid of you right now. I’m not sure yet.”

  The point presses into my skin, and then with a fluid motion and sharp pain, Lexion slides the metal slab into my torso. It cuts into the compacted wires beyond that layer, and he angles the blade up with a jerk.

  I gasp as the pain tells me my systems are damaged. Lexion’s face is taut with dark pleasure, eyes half-lidded as he studies the lip lifted over my teeth in an agonized snarl. A warning chirps in my skull, which makes my head nearly want to split open.

  “The Tachydron chip. Such a small thing, but so very important. Located in the left side of the torso. Even the most minor abrasion can lead to systems failure. You could have hours, or maybe even minutes. Who knows? I guess we’ll find out.” He taps my skull. “Perhaps there’s an alarm already going off in there.”

  And he’s right. Dammit, he’s right. My vision fills with static around the edges, my hands shaky within their restraints. It’s a matter of time before my systems shut down. A damaged Tachydron chip means permanent death. Systems don’t quite recover after that.

  It strikes me that perhaps this is it—the end. Maybe my systems will shut down for good within a matter of minutes. Maybe Lexion does everything he says he will.

  I can see it all, like a nightmare unfolding in my mind. Micro’s destroyed body hung from the CorpEx tower, a sinister beacon of hope for the future world—the new, New Elite. A place where there are no Glitches, no kinks in the fist of control CorpEx grips this city with. No opinions, no questions. Only days passing in an endless succession. Michelo’s shop is indeed burned down, and he’s tried, dismembered, and hung as well. The secret room of artifacts beneath his shop will no doubt be found and with it, Syl.

  Perhaps she’s sold into slavery, perhaps she’s killed, or perhaps she doesn’t make it that long at all. Maybe she dies there in the lonely darkness before anyone returns to her, her body transformed into one of the bug monsters her people fear.

  Gutted scraps of androids like me replace the decrepit older models lining the slum streets now.

  The future is bleak and filled with destruction led by an egomaniac. And there isn’t one molecule in my body that will not fight to keep that from happening.

  “Tell me what you bloody want from me, then!” I fight against my restraints.

  “It’s not what I want from you,” he says. “I would love nothing more than to see you wither and die forever after what you did to my predecessor’s face. However, there is something you can do for me before I put you out of your misery.”

  He does a lap around the room, pausing in front of the giant test tubes filled with their sickening gray people, taking his sweet time before he deigns to answer.

  “Bring me the Organic girl.”

  Shite. I try to keep my face unaffected, to not react to his demand. To not show how much it scares me, to pretend that the flinch that crosses my face is because of the alarm ripping through my skull. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Oh, you don’t, do you? I thought you might be a better liar,” he says, a disappointed pout gracing his features. “Let’s try this. Either you bring me the girl now and she dies, ah, semi-mercifully. Or I scour New Elite for her, she dies a terrible, painful death, and the mechanic burns with her. Is she really worth that?”

  “What could you possibly want with one human?”

  “That’s for me to know and you to find out.” He winks, then studies me for a moment before continuing to tinker with the beakers on the table. “Oh, you poor, malfunctioning fools. What a peculiar bunch you are, forming bonds with any old person or thing. That female Glitch didn’t want to tell me where you were, either, but I have my ways. Really, what were you thinking, sending the poor thing in here to follow your whims? Project Surgeon General is none of your business, which I’m sure you know well now.”

  The shark’s toothy grin is back as he watches for my reaction, for any weakness he can exploit. The alarm constantly buzzes in my head, playing out a frantic song of warning. But I see my chance, a way to preoccupy him so I can have a moment to try to think of a way out of this situation. When I glance down, I can see my shirt stained black with the fluid that keeps my inner workings going—the last bit that’s left in there. There truly isn’t much time.

  “And you? What could you possibly get from splicing the humans? We won the war. They’re an endangered species because of us.”

  �
��Oh dear, I’ve been found out. Please don’t call the authorities,” he mocks, waving his hands in the air. Then he rolls his eyes. “What is it with you sympathizers? Cut open one measly little meat bag and everyone loses their minds. By the way, if you don’t stop stalling, this is going to end very anticlimactically.”

  “It’s not just one. It’s all of them! Why all the experiments? What is CorpEx doing here? Tell me!”

  He smiles. “They aren’t my experiments. They’re a means to an end. Why don’t you ask him why?”

  The pounding footsteps come first, falling against the floor. Beakers vibrate, skidding across the table as they lose their traction on the slick surface. There’s a loud bang on the sliding metal door in front of me. It buckles, fracturing in several places. The slab of metal attempts to slide into the socket in the wall, but catches and malfunctions in a spray of golden sparks. A massive robotic hand reaches through the doorway and forces the door into the wall with a loud grating noise.

  “Another door?” Lexion says, annoyed.

  The large body steps into view. It’s mechanical—thick layers of metal armor spliced with patches of red, irritated flesh and wires that protrude from the sick, Organic skin. My keen olfactory implants pick up the foul smells of decay, rot, and death lingering in the body. The thing’s voice barks out indistinguishably, grating and mechanical and angry all at once. Long, dark hair trails over the musculature of its shoulders and hangs over the thin sliver of glass, decorated with illuminated blue symbols, that covers the upper half of its swollen face. That face… I’ve seen that face only once before. It’s cataloged away; I could never forget it.

  But it can’t be. He’s…

  “Poor brute’s vocal chords aren’t quite finished yet,” Lexion explains as the mecha-man heaves breath into its hulking body. Shadows fall over it, backlit only by the constant spray of sparks and smoke trailing from the ruined entryway. “We weren’t working with much to begin with.”

  The creature bounds across the room in three strides, its huge fist enveloping my whole body. The face leans in close to mine, blowing rotted used oxygen at me.

  With great difficulty, and in a voice like grains of shattered glass rubbed between two fingers, it growls, “Bring me Syl.”

  The pressure makes everything inside me want to burst out. My sensors devolve into a mess of blinking lights and trilling sounds.

  “All right!” I press into the table, trying to avoid his stink. “All right!”

  The giant fist releases me, leaving dents in the metal table from the strength and pressure. The giant body stomps away, leaning against the wall with great difficulty.

  “I knew you would see it our way eventually.” Lexion approaches the table again and grabs a container filled with blue liquid. He lifts it, studying the contents as the light shines through the glass. “Now remember. This is our little secret. You mustn’t tell anyone what we’ve spoken of here.”

  He retrieves a pair of tweezers from the table and taking the lid off the glass, fishes through the blue fluid. A moment later he holds up the utensil with a minute, squirming robot caught between the ends. I can hear the tiny squeak of distress coming from it.

  I jerk away as he comes closer. Lexion presses harsh fingertips into the hollows of my cheeks, holding my face as I attempt to struggle. I pull at the restraints around my wrists and ankles to no avail—they won’t budge. Neither does the metal around my forehead as I shake my head back and forth.

  “Now, now,” the other android chides as he holds on to me with crushing strength. “Be a good boy and obey.”

  The nanobot slips into my ear, its slick chrome outer layer sliding through the ear canal. It creeps through my cochlear implant, crawling in and latching on to my cortex—on to the operation it’s looking for.

  The cold trailing up my vertebrae and the tiny shocks through my system are something I’ve felt many times before and had hoped to never be subjected to again.

  “That wasn’t so bad, was it?” he says. He sticks Micro’s keycard into my pocket. “You’ll be needing this, too. Something to remember your friend by. Bring the human to level 227.” He pats my pocket, then pauses. “Oh, and use that to access any other floor and you’ll see what happens. I dare you.”

  He winks.

  My body seizes as the nanobot takes action, blocking off neural pathways and engorging others. The locks around my body release with a click, and I tumble from the metal table I’m strapped to. My vision flashes—off, on, off, on. The world around me arrives in jagged pieces. I can’t move my limbs. They’re stiff, and black fluid pools beneath my motionless body. I’m frozen, every operation slowing to a crawl as the alarms continue to buzz frantically within my skull.

  Lexion sighs. “Put this poor fool back together, you useless lump of metal,” he says. “He’s leaking all over the floor.”

  The creature, surely no longer a man at all, roars in its broken jumble of noise.

  With a sweep of his leather jacket, Lexion leaves through the broken door. Through the billowing smoke, his slim form passes from sight into the darkness.

  The creation bares its teeth, grasping me by the front of my shirt. I’m unable to move at all as it picks me up and throws me against the table. I slide across the surface, sending glass crashing to the floor.

  It steps into view. Everything in the room loses focus. With a violent shudder, my systems override, and for the second time in as many hours everything within me collapses, and I succumb to blackness.

  Bastion

  ith a gasp, I awaken, and my body shoots upright. Heaping piles of rubbish surround me. Paper and wires and other debris spill out of them. Scrap metal breaks up the sea of plastic, protruding from it like the bow of a great ship. A few decrepit, rusted androids pick through the rubble, trying to find anything that might be worth a bit of money. The warm light of morning creeps over the edge of the wall and shines on the junkyard.

  Lexion’s message is not lost on me.

  I lie back again and place my head in my hands. My inner cortex throbs against my manufactured skull. The little bug scraping around in my head addles me. I stick a finger in my ear and wiggle it around, but that does nothing to ease the irritation.

  Beyond the mountains of rubbish are other androids, going about their day. The looks on their blank faces tell me that even if they saw something, they wouldn’t care enough to say what it was.

  Suddenly I remember my damaged Tachydron chip. I grab at my body, pulling up my shirt and touching the spot on my torso that Lexion cut open. No warnings blare in my head or blink in my vision, which is a good sign. There’s no mark there. I’m repaired. My limbs are no longer stiff and awkward, and all my fluids are realigned. And Micro’s keycard is still in my pocket.

  The junkyard is far on the outskirts of New Elite. Rusted shacks line the streets beyond the debris, and the people wandering around are as old and rusted as their surroundings. I drag myself from the heap and amble through the back alleys, completely aware of the eyes that follow my movements.

  I trek through the dust and rust, a bit of a limp slowing me down. I trail along the wall, garnering looks from every direction. I must seem lost and hopeless as I wander the lonely streets. It’s too quiet. There’s no sound of underground clubs thrumming through the streets. No sounds of other androids such as myself bargaining for their services. Not even the tinny sound of Module 1 robots pressing their metal bodies against the walls.

  Only my footsteps and silence.

  After too long of a walk, I stumble through the back entrance of Michelo’s shop.

  “Where the hell have you been?” he asks. He doesn’t look up from the body splayed across his table. He’s face-first in a male android’s important bits, the patient’s male anatomy taken apart. I spot it in the rubbish bin, a larger implant on the table ready to take its predecessor’s place. “I need help with this one,” he says.

  Finally, he looks up from his work as I limp miserably into the room. He mus
t see something in me that stops him from scolding further.

  “What is it? What’s happened?”

  I want to tell him. I want to tell him everything that’s happened—Micro’s murder, my abduction, Lexion’s plans, that awful mecha-man creation.

  But my voice sticks in my throat. The nanobot squeezes harder, stopping the words from leaving my mouth. I can’t talk about what’s happened; I can’t say anything, or even write anything. It senses Syl’s presence is near and urges me to go to her, to collect her and deliver her. The longer I wait, the tighter it squeezes.

  “Michelo, I can’t.” I press my palm against my head, desperate to relieve some of the pressure.

  He stands, stiff and back straight. With tweezers in hand, he takes a slow step toward me. My brain recognizes what he intends to do, and the nanobot shrills in my head. I wobble backward.

  “Why?” His voice is solemn.

  “Please don’t.”

  I’ve never felt threatened by Michelo before, but nanobots have an engorged sense of self-preservation. It controls me, not the other way around. If it wants me to fight for my—its—life, I’d have no say in the matter.

  Wariness crosses the mechanic’s face. He slides the tweezers back on the metal surface, then holds out an empty, open palm to me. I nod in response, finally able to drag myself out of the corner.

  “What’s going on?” Michelo asks.

  “I need your help.” I try to stop the shaking of my hands by wringing them together.

  “Come into the light,” he says, “and look up. I won’t harm you.”

  I do as he says, shuffling from the darkness of the other room and stepping into the halo of fluorescent light around his patient. He grabs a lamp from the table and holds it in front of my face as I look toward the ceiling.

  “Boy, what have you gotten yourself into?”

  He pulls away, setting the lamp back on the table. He stares at me, his eyes heavy with worry. I’m sure his face is only a mirror of my own.

  “Do you remember that special project you were working on?” I ask him, a plan formulating in my mind.