I, Android: A Different Model

by Heather Killough-Walden

  However, it was the figure in the black hoodie whose face had been obscured that commanded my attention. He rose gracefully from his seat, reminding me of a large cat in the way he moved, fluid and practiced. As one of the men hastily pocketed his weapon and bent to take hold of the child from behind, the hooded figure expertly attacked his armed companion, taking him by surprise.

  The cameras flickered again, and this time I noticed something strange in addition to the malfunctioning technology. Moving along the inside of the rail car’s metal wall and coalescing at each pointed edge of the scrolling electronic billboard, was a building pink-purple-white glow. It looked like severe static electricity or… “It’s St. Elmo’s Fire,” I muttered, recognizing the plasma build-up and discharge. I could even imagine what it sounded like.

  Between the static-filled splices the video was rapidly becoming, I watched the hooded man disarm the first attacker, applying breaking pressure to his wrist and elbow, dislocating his knee, and delivering a crushing blow to the base of the man’s skull. The first shooter fell.

  More purple and white sizzled along the car’s insides as the girl struggled wildly in her captor’s grasp. Now the hooded figure faced them and raised his hand. In it, he held the other shooter’s weapon, having taken it from him. It felt so familiar to see someone do that, having seen Daniel do it so many times.

  The second shooter froze as the barrel was leveled at him. But he had little time to contemplate his situation, as the gun went off without further hesitation. The suited man’s head snapped back violently, but the gun barely jerked at all in the hooded figure’s grasp. This was odd, but also familiar to me. In an android’s grasp, even guns with more than average kick barely moved at all when they were discharged; androids were too strong and too heavy, capable of holding absolutely still through the shock of firing.

  I was aware the hooded figure could not be an android; they hadn’t yet been invented. According to the time stamp, Nicholas wouldn’t come up with the schematics for one for another decade and a half. Even then, it would be several more years before they went to production.

  The hooded figure was simply exceptionally skilled and exceedingly strong.

  But I was held rapt by the now fully unfolded scene and his continued grace, and the further the footage advanced, the more familiar to me he seemed.

  Blood had blossomed behind the suited man’s body. He released his grip on the girl and began to fall. As he did, the hooded figure moved forward with more refined strength and speed, catching the child before she would have hit the floor. She stilled for a moment to look up at him, and he rapidly turned with her in his arms, at last affording me a view of her eyes.

  They were gold. Bright with unshed tears, wide with terror, light as the color of sunshine through honey.

  I would recognize those eyes anywhere. I’d never known anyone else who had them.

  “She’s me…” I whispered breathlessly. I barely heard my own voice through the sizzling, buzzing hum that was now roaring through my ears. If felt as if I, myself, were statically charged. The hairs on my arms were standing on end, my skin prickled, and the oxygen in my lungs had been burned completely away.

  The reality of what I was seeing rolled through me over and over like one suffocating wave after another, but I couldn’t look away. The hooded figure spoke quickly to the girl and she wrapped her arms tightly around his neck. More plasma discharge erupted and sparked through the train car’s cabin and the scrolling billboard fried out, going blank as the hooded man strode to the car’s double doors. He shifted the girl’s small body into one strong arm and used his free hand to begin prying the electric doors apart.

  The train was moving; it would have taken incredible strength to work against the mechanism that locked the doors in place. Nonetheless, they began to separate. Wind at once whipped into the cabin, blowing through the girl’s hair to send it flying.

  But something caused the man to hesitate, the shift in his attention snapping his head to the left. A split second later, just behind him sparks struck off one of the nearby poles that standing passengers could use for balance. It was a ricocheting bullet; someone was shooting at them.

  The girl ducked her head into the man’s shoulder. I could see her knuckles were white where she gripped him. The man turned his body so that she was completely shielded from their oncoming attackers and raised his gun arm once more, firing off several rounds.

  The camera filming the scene sputtered, blinking in and out again. I wanted to reach out, clutch at the image, hold on tight to keep it from going away.

  But it was not meant to be.

  The last thing I witnessed was the sudden surge of plasma discharge, the St. Elmo’s Fire that most likely caused the camera’s final black-out. Just before the it winked out for good, an arm of blue-purple lightning tore apart from the walls and whipped outward, touching down briefly upon a wayward, flying lock of the girl’s long golden hair.

  Before my eyes, the lock of hair was shocked, shifting its color from gold to white all the way to the root.

  And then the video went out, the camera in the rail car clearly absorbing too much electromagnetic energy. The image froze on darkness, and the laser projected display indicated one final folder to open.

  I swallowed hard where I knelt in tangled blankets. I was sweating, my heart was hammering, my breathing was uneven, and my head was pounding. I licked my lips, tried to clear my throat, and said, “Open Spec.”

  As the drive closed the open folder and the third and final file expanded to fill the laser screen, I distractedly swiped the back of my hand across my cheeks. It came away wet. I fiercely ignored it.

  Just as the others had, the last file contained video footage. It opened on an unfortunately familiar room. And an unfortunately all-too familiar scene.

  A sound ripped itself from my lungs, soft and pathetic. A whimper. Since when did I whimper?

  Since tonight, I told myself firmly. I fucking give you permission, Sam.

  Because the shit I’d seen tonight was already too much – but this was the icing on the shit cake. It was Zero again, once more in his lab and leaning over its center table. But instead of a whole and repaired polar bear, it was a ripped-to-pieces android strapped down before him.

  It was Lucas.

  I couldn’t hear what was transpiring. A very large part of me was grateful for this, but there was a small portion that was disappointed, frustrated even. Zero was clearly talking to Lucas, and I had no idea what he was saying.

  Stop, Sam. You don’t need to hear it. Just look closely.

  I flexed my fingers on my knees, took a deep breath, and schooled myself, remembering one of Daniel’s many mandatory training sessions for Prometheus. The rebel leader had taught us what to do in situations where we were deprived of one or more of our senses.

  Use the other ones, damn it.

  So I did. I couldn’t read lips; I wasn’t an android. But I could read body language just fine. Zero was standing tall, his legs shoulder-width, his back straight. I’d seen Lucas take this stance with prisoners of Prometheus. I’d seen Daniel take it from time to time. Hell, I’d even seen him do it tonight, along with Cole no less. Zero was in interrogation mode. His stature was meant to intimidate.

  Beneath him, Lucas turned his face away from his tormentor. Zero retaliated with icy calm, disturbing and effective, gently placing his hand over Luke’s molt reactor, which was exposed to him, the skin that would normally cover it having been dissected away.

  Luke’s back arched in obvious pain, his skin waved into android-gray, his EED flashed in its already red state, and I had to look away. That stupid whimper was back again, escaping through clenched teeth. I slapped at my face and the goddamn wetness that seemed to want to stay there. And then I forced my eyes back to the screen.

  Just in time, too.

  I blinked as Zero went still, Luke’s skin returned to normal, and the wounded android’s head lifted from the table. His EED sens
or switched to a troubled yellow. He said something then that I could actually understand in its simplicity. It was that all-too-human one-word phrase that we muttered or whispered or pleaded or cried out – as Lucas did now – when there was nothing else for it.

  I watched him mouth the word, “No!” and at the same time I watched Zero step back and hold something up to the light. It was an intel chip.

  Sleek in design, utterly undetectable by scans, capable of recording, storing, and processing lifetimes worth of continuous data, the intel chip in Zero’s hands gleamed. Zero turned it slightly, studying it. Though it was slick with Vulcan blood, it no doubt contained every single secret Prometheus had to share.

  Including most of mine.

  “Oh my God,” I whispered for probably the thousandth time over the course of the last few days. “That’s what he was doing….” My dry, cracked voice trailed off.

  That’s what Zero had been doing with Lucas. Not torturing him. Searching him. That’s why he was taken apart. Zero had been looking for the intel chip, and he’d known the chip was somewhere inside Luke’s body. He’d known all along. He’d known full well that Lucas, and I was guessing Jack too, were spies. Traitors.

  He’d known Lucas was using me.

  I wanted to look away then. I wanted to close my eyes, but not just now, not just for a little while. I wanted them to close for a good long while and offer me oblivion. I didn’t want to think anymore. I didn’t want to know anymore.

  But the video wasn’t over, and my masochistic gaze was glued to the projection while it continued to reveal its painful truths.

  Behind Zero, the lab door opened. Grace entered the room carrying a tray of supplies. Zero slipped the intel chip into the front pocket of his button-down shirt and turned to face her. But she stopped just beyond the threshold when she caught sight of Lucas and the state he was in. I noticed the barely disguised look of confusion and fear in her eyes. Her EED transitioned to an anxious yellow.

  But Zero came away from the table and strode across the room to meet her at the door, taking the tray from her. She told him something that was so formal in body language, I assumed it was some sort of report. He nodded. From the very slight motions of his head and shoulders, I could tell he said something in return that I couldn’t see at all because he was turned away from the camera.

  Then he clearly sent Grace away because she nodded obediently and left through the door, closing it again behind her. Zero turned his back on that door and started across the room toward the table with the tray in his hands.

  He’d only made it half way when the door opened again a few seconds later. I knew he was expecting it to be Grace, which I surmised is why he didn’t even look up. I could see his lips moving instead as he obviously said something to her.

  But from my vantage point, I of course could see that it wasn’t Grace. It was instead a man. And I knew this man.

  “Ben,” I gasped softly. And then I said it again, this time as little more than a growl. Mother fucking, “Ben.”

  The android was dressed all in black and armed, and his gun glinted once maliciously beneath the harsh lab lights. He stepped into the room and raised his gun arm, taking careful aim. For one brief, insane moment, I had the urge to call out to Zero and warn him.

  I mentally kicked myself a few hundred times for that utterly daft desire.

  In the projected image, Zero spun with the tray, and Ben pulled the trigger repeatedly, striking his opponent in the chest with every shot he fired. IRM-1000’s body moved very slightly under the tremendous impact of each bullet. They landed in a tight circle just to the right of where his molt would be located. Ben didn’t stop until half a dozen rounds had been emptied into him. Then he lowered his weapon, and Zero dropped to his knees on the marble floor. It was irrational in the extreme to me that even in that singular act, I could not help but notice that he did so gracefully.

  Zero dropped the tray, which no doubt made quite the clatter on the hard floor. As Ben stepped more fully inside the room and closed the door behind him, IRM-1000’s arms hung at his sides. Vulcan blood began to stream across those well-built forearms until it pooled on the tile beneath his relaxed fingertips.

  Ben made his calm and unhurried way to Zero’s form. I caught the make of gun he carried; it was a Japanese model that had possessed built-in silencers for decades and was favored among criminals. Especially those vastly intelligent, highly trained killers who worked for people as powerful as Ben did.

  But despite his plethora of skills and seemingly unerring ability to plan, I still wondered how he’d managed to make it past Zero’s guards with a single weapon in order to get to the room unhindered.

  Wait. Maybe he didn’t have to, I thought, as still more goddamn realizations struck me.

  When Zero had absconded with me to his mansion, it would have been after this scene had taken place. I remembered at the time noticing armed guards everywhere. I had wondered why he would feel he needed them, and I’d asked him as much. His response had been evasive at best.

  But now I had my answer. He’d fucked up once and didn’t want to do it again. Especially with the goose that laid the golden eggs now under his roof.

  My gaze narrowed on the projected image as Ben came to stand before Zero, and Zero did not so much as look up. In a manner just as casual and cold as Zero’s, Ben gracefully took a knee mere inches in front of him, bringing the two of them to the same level. Then he placed the barrel of his gun beneath Zero’s chin and lifted ever so slightly, forcing Zero to meet his gaze.

  Ben said something to him, something that I again could not make out. But as he spoke, he leaned over and reached into Zero’s front shirt pocket, extracting the intel chip. That explained why every round he’d shot at Zero had been carefully aimed at the other side of his chest.

  Ben held the chip up between them. His expression at once became grave, his hazel eyes hooded and severe. He said something else to the other android, baring his teeth in warning as he spoke. When he did, Zero’s head tilted further up; whatever Ben had just said managed to get his attention. I finally caught sight of the wounded android’s eyes in that moment and expected them to be the same dark red of his EED. But instead, they were white. Like headlights.

  White. And then it hit me. Now I knew. Now I understood! I thought of all the times Zero’s eyes had turned that unique silver-white in front of me, moving through the spectrum, including that other rarity purple, until fierce and piercing platinum gazed steadily down at me. I had finally figured something out about the enigmatic enemy of Prometheus.

  White means he doesn’t understand.

  “Damn,” I finally swore out loud. I really wanted to know what Ben was saying that would cause Zero to react. “Pause video,” I commanded softly. Then I thought hard. Honestly, it felt good to think about something abstract just then. It meant I didn’t have to think about myself and my veritable pity party.

  I ran a stiff hand through my hair, chewing my lip. I needed to figure out a way to get audio off this thing. The problem was, there was no audio because there was no speaker. Leep drives were not made that way. However… the sound waves had been recorded. Even when cameras didn’t record sound for strict audio playback, they always recorded it as waves.

  And it just so happened that due to the scrambler technology I’d helped Nicholas with, I’d done a bit of work lately with sound waves.

  I picked up the drive, pressing my thumb to the scanner to deactivate it. Then I got to work opening it up. I didn’t have any of my tools with me. I had no magnifying glass, no tech, nothing. I was going to have to jury rig something that could convert the recorded sound waves to transcribed text. It would have been an easy and fast job in the lab at Prometheus.

  But here, alone was another matter.

  I managed to get the device safely open using the flat head of a thumbtack, which I stole from an old fashioned calendar on the wall above the bed. Jonathan had sure liked old-fashioned things. Even the “
television” in the corner of the room was an antique. I wondered if it even worked or was there because Jonathan considered it a form of art.

  In the end, I settled with doing a little re-coding on the leep, leaving the hardware more or less alone. It was too small to alter much with only my hands and the tiny in-room things I could find for tools. Getting into the code was difficult; I had to use the interface, and software coding unique to a single piece of hardware was always seriously protected in order to keep it safe from viruses that could cause it to malfunction for good.

  But a glance at the clock told me no more than twenty minutes had passed before I was finished with the job and closing the drive back up again.

  I shoved the tack back into the wall behind me and held the drive in my open palm. Then I took a deep breath, sent out a mental prayer to Yoda, and pressed my thumb to the scanner to reactivate it.

  The leep lit up with rainbow-colored life, the lights coalesced at its front again, and the laser projection widened to full capacity in front of me. Only, this time there was a black space at the bottom of the desktop image, which meant my attempt had been successful.

  I stifled the usual victory shout by biting the inside of my cheek. “Open Spec,” I instructed.

  The file opened and, like the advanced device that it was, it began to auto-play from the exact point at which I’d left it before shutting it down. “Pause video. Replay last thirty seconds and continue,” I said softly. “Transcribe all vocalized exchanges.”

  The screen paused, flashed, and re-set. I held my breath. Then the video began to play again, showing Zero leaving the table to meet Grace at the door. He took the tray from her, and the black space beneath the image began to scroll the clear white words of his transcribed speech.

  I exhaled with relief.

  “Thank you Grace. You don’t have to stay.”

  “No,” she said, looking down. “It’s… I understand. I also came to tell you that your men have reviewed the plans for Prometheus. They are ready to move when you are.”