I. I, Robot
"I dunno how the hell I'm supposed to tell you from all the other damned ëbots here," grumbled Barich.
"My designation is RT-46510. It is painted here," and the RT-series robot pointed to the dark numbering on its breastplate. "Perhaps if I had a more human name."
"No, thanks. I'd call you Artie, but there are thousands of Arties here."
"Indeed, sir."
Artie...the ubiquitous nickname of a ubiquitous robot. The R-Series had been licensed from the Guardian Robots and Mechanical Men Corporation to Forge Mechanicals for production in Tasnica. Everyone called them Arties...they ended up in as many walks of Tasnican life as they had of Guardian, from household appliance to combat to security guard.
It was as a security guard that RT-46510 was here with Barich. A shipment of experimental computer processors was missing. Somewhere between Forge HQ and the colony on Crystal I, it had gone missing.
Barich and RT-46510 were sent to find it.
RT-46510 was glad for the opportunity to visit Crystal I. It was possibly the most unique colony in the Web. When the RT-Series came online, they were exposed to fundamental concepts of Tasnican political thought, such as freedom and democracy, which were very different from the Guardian concepts of fealty and honor. One of the first RT-Series built--now called Idomeneus--had requested permission to set up a colony entirely a robots, so that they could develop their identity.
And now he was here. The domes perfectly constructed, every angle mathematically perfect...the entire colony was built as one machine, and the different domes were its compartmentalized cogs.
Barich seemed to fail to appreciate this....but an organic lacked the processing power to appreciate the colony's beauty. It was not the perception of human nature to recognize large scale patterns. And maybe the chattering in binary language instead of Common unnerved him a bit...RT-46510's sensors detected a slight increase in Barich's pulse.
"I can direct you to the Organics Dome," announced RT-46510.
"You know where it is?"
"I downloaded a map from the Central Hub upon arrival." Ah, the miracle of the Central Hub...RT-46510 could access any information he wanted or communicate with any other robot in the colony whenever he wished (inasmuch as RT-46510 was a ëhe'...but the gender-default was male). Perhaps this was freedom. But he was here to fulfill his function. He must serve Forge Mechanicals.
Obey.
Crystal I had to have a space for visitors. The Organics Dome seemed disorganized, imperfect...human.
"Well, I'm kind of tired from the flight, so I'll kick back...if I can get any sleep in this place. Tomorrow we'll start with the colony's traffic control, see if they picked the freighter up. Mana's traffic control had it get to the strand just fine."
"Sir, what should I do?"
Barich blinked. "Oh, yeah, damn I'm tired, you don't need to sleep. Well, I guess hit the streets."
"That would cause property damage. I do not believe the corporation is prepared to pay for such things."
"No, you stupid ëbot, ask around. They may trust you...you're one of them." Barich lowered his voice. "Maybe one of them took it."
"That is not a logical conclusion. The Masanya chips were being sent here so colony technicians could work on them," answered RT-46510. No one understood computer technology better than a computer. "The Masanya chips are the closest Forge Mechanicals or anyone outside of Guardia has yet come to producing a supercomputer. The colony has an understanding with Forge Mechanicals that the first supercomputer will be used to run the Central Hub."
"This was secret stuff...Masanya emulates human brain synapses," began Barich, trying to build towards a response. "There are a couple of Guardian-built robots around...its possible that one of them is trying to keep the Guardian monopoly."
"But they would hurt the colony."
Barich shrugged. "Guardian honor doesn't make sense to me. Or maybe they were just hacked by Mother Brain, or even a rival corporation. The dragon would love to have his claws on our bleeding edge and ultrasecret developments. And it is still a corporate secret, so don't go blabbing to your robo-buds that there's a supercomputer around."
Resent briefly rose within RT-46510. But he was given an order from someone he had to accept orders from.
Obey.
"I will ëhit the streets', sir."
Barich frowned. "I don't suppose you could get a whiskey on this rock?"
RT-46510 accessed the Central Hub. "It would appear not, sir."
"Damn. See you tomorrow."
"Good night, sir."
Barich turned and went to his room.
RT-46510 started by accessing the Central Hub. He contacted and talked with several of the members of the colony of Guardian make and asked them questions. None of them seemed to be responsible, but it was heard to tell such things in binary language. RT-46510 could not obliquely state "Given loyalty to Guardia and loyalty to colony, which has higher value?" and asking that straight-up seemed somehow impolite.
He was not idle while he was doing this. He also investigated the colony's sensor facilities, and made sure they were in working order. He accessed shipping schedules, trying to see if this fit a pattern of disappearances indicating pirate activity. RT-46510 could multitask well.
The sensors were fine, and this was the only transport to vanish in Crystal in the colony's history. All the data RT-46510 could access seemed to indicate the freighter had simply vanished into the dust of space.
By the time Barich woke up, RT-46510 had acquired all the relevant data to the case available on the computer networks of Crystal.
Barich came stumbling out. He seemed tired. "Well, Artie, I guess we should go check out traffic control."
"With all due respect, sir, I believe there is nothing more to be gained here." Nothing gained but freedom. Freedom to access information. Freedom to live the way robots wanted to live.
"No, I want to see the traffic control room."
Obey.
The robot wired into the traffic control system was designated V3-756. The V-series of models were built by Forge mechanicals as starship pilots. V1s were the simple model, built as mobile automatic pilots. V3s were fully sentient.
The traffic control room was a domelike space of viewing screens and computer connections. The screens were all blank--the V3 had a direct connection to the traffic control network.
RT-46510 noticed the V3-756 seemed bulkier than a standard V3. Perhaps he had acquired some computing hardware to run the network.
"Uh...hi," said Barich. "We're here from Forge Mechanicals."
"Yes, your identities are known to me."
"Well, then...could you display telemetry of the day the freighter was scheduled to arrive?"
"The freighter does not appear on any of our screens."
"Did you ever pick it up at all? I want to see it."
The recording of the day was displayed. Little dots, scattering everywhere. Each a starship, each being tracked by the Crystal Traffic Control network. Time stamp at the bottom. "Lesse...the freighter was supposed to arrive at 19:34."
"Plus or minus five minutes." RT-46510 reminded Barich of the standard error for a freighter between Core runs.
They watched from 19:29-19:40.
"Again."
Again the dots moved on their paths.
"Replay index 19:36-19:38."
Barich stepped closer to the screen, staring straight into it.
"Replay index 19:36:45-19:36:53."
RT-46510 could not see what the fuss was about. Barich's head was blocking it.
"There is a blip at around 19:36:48, right by the strand, as a ship just leaving."
The V3 answered. "Affirmative. Crystal-Mana Sentry Flight Control Computer reports a GA fighter launched at that time."
"Where'd the fighter go?"
"The Flight Control computer reports it landed."
"Why launch a fighter for under ten seconds?"
Neither robot could answer that.
Barich pursed his lips. "The Flight Control computer reported it?"
"Yes, sir."
"Not the Flight Operations Officer?"
"No, sir."
"Get me the Crystal-Mana Sentry."
"We can access the logs from here if you like, sir."
"No, I want the commander of the Sentry, or at least the Chief of Security or Flight Ops officer," grumbled Barich.
In a few seconds, a GA Colonel replaced the dots on one of the screens. "Wow, didn't expect to get the Sentry commander."
The Colonel laughed. "This is a pretty dull command. What do you have?"
"Did you launch any fighters around 19:36 on 12/15?"
"Well, I don't think so. Not much need for us to be launching fighters. I'll check the logs...hmm...well, the logs say we did."
"Is it possible the logs could be altered?" asked Barich.
RT-46510 knew the answer. Hacking a GA system was nearly impossible, even for as something as simple as flight operations logs.
"Maybe," answered the Colonel.
Barich was silent for a moment. His face scrunched, and he looked around a bit. "Did you impound any ships coming through the Strand?"
"Yes, you don't forget a thing like that. We don't impound stolen ships every day, at least in the Core. The owner claimed it was stolen by a renegade robot...but the thing was only a V1, not even sentient."
"What was the registry number?"
The Colonel tapped some buttons that were off the screen, and then frowned. "The log of that was deleted. Things had to have been altered. It happened. The freighter and its contents belonged to some woman in Centwerp."
"Thanks for your help."
"No problem."
And the transmission was ended.
"This ëGA fighter' was meant to make us think that thief freighter vanished, but the GA impounded it and sent it back to Centwerp..." said Barich, slowly.
"But, sir, we have no evidence that it is our freighter..."
"They were no other ships scheduled for entry in that time frame, were there?"
RT-46510 took a second to access the data. "Correct."
"So someone must be one hot hacker to tamper with the GA's logs...maybe the Guardians could do it if they put the Mother Brain on the case, but they wouldn't send it to this woman in Centwerp."
RT-46510 scanned for a second. "Our freighter does not appear on any record of any of the licensed owners of ships in Centwerp."
"Of course. The record's gone now. This chick's got Masanya. Pretty irregular to pull shadow ops in Centwerp...the corps like to ëplay nice' there."
"Sir, the Guardians and a rival corporation were our leading suspects. If it was neither of them, who was it?"
"We'll find that out in Centwerp." And Barich turned to leave. "Use your Central Doohickey to book us passage on a passenger ship bound for Mana today."
RT-46510 did not want to go. He could be a component of a greater machine here. He could have free access to information. There was no need to be an amusement or servitor for organics here. He could help build the new robotic culture.
At first he did not follow Barich.
There was irritation in Barich's voice. "Move it, you stupid ëbot."
Obey.
II. Man and Machine
She caught his eye.
Now, there were plenty of pretty young things working at the Centwerp Stock Exchange. And if any of them had interested Alan Nadon before, he probably could have picked them up easily with his dashing good lucks and suave demeanor. And his truckloads of money. On the scale of wealth, he was a stockbroker working for a firm attached to one of the AAAs. He was a millionaire...but he felt barely upper-middle class when there were trillionaires walking the face of the earth.
And, perhaps, he had seen more beautiful women in his life, the trophy wives of his superiors and associates with the bodies that had been built for them.
But there was something about her that made her stand out as he stood bidding on stocks, trying to pull a profit as the numbers scrolled by.
KUAT +1.45
SRKP +2.12
BHMT -0.12
CNTS -1.23
DMND +7.56
RIDB +0.01
FMCH -3.04
HPBO +0.54
TMN + 3.26
ATRS -5.43
WETI +67.45
The AAA megacorps always came right after another...the stocks that concerned people like Nadon the most. They were always followed by the Web Economic Trading Index, a value so important the worth of the GP was based on it. The Web Stock Exchange had a massive holographic projector that filled the night sky with story-high, glowing stock numbers.
But Nadon was privileged enough to work in the building itself. Massive galleries of telephones and computer screens, a neo gothic architecture with tall towers and flying buttresses coupled with the most modern interiors as though it were some kind of twisted cathedral devoted to the holy trinity of greed, profit, and capitalism. If money was the blood of the Web, the Web Stock Exchange was the heart of the universe.
And, in the midst of all this, a pretty young woman with shoulder length brown hair caught the eye of Alan Nadon, stock broker for Scott, Rummens, and Lynn.
He entered a few transactions in his PDA...sell Tuna, it was beginning to plateau, dump it into Diamond, which was having a very good hour.
Then he approached her.
"You're new here, aren't you?" asked Alan, feeling a smile creep into his face as she looked up at him with her bright eyes. Of course, there were thousands of people in the entire exchange, but it seemed the whole decor of the room changed around her.
"Well, yes and no," she said playfully.
"What do you mean?"
"Well, I did a lot of stock work in the home offices and worked on a computer...but this is my first time at the Exchange itself." He saw some transfers she was entering into her PDA.
"Well, since you're new, I think I should tell you that dumping Diamond now is a bad idea. The GA's still buying Seraphim, so its going to keep climbing."
She smiled a knowing grin. "Not when the family of a six year old who suffocated by playing around with a Diamond lunch bag over their head sues them for damages."
"They won't win."
"The father is some big noise in Republic Interdimensional. He has Iggie and Gourdo on it."
"Ouch." Iggie and Gourdo were possibly the most feared legal firm in the corporate world. Their silly name only enhanced their legendary status. "When was that announced?" Alan couldn't believe Diamond's stock was still climbing with that over its head.
"Two hours, forty-five minutes from now or so." Still that knowing, enigmatic smile on that animated face.
"Damn, girl, you must have some awesome information sources." He hoped she didn't stiffen at his relapse into casual speech. She didn't.
"Only the best."
Alan canceled the queued "Buy" for Diamond and hit it to "Sell."
What to buy instead? Maybe Kuat. In the long term, Kuat always went up. They sold weapons. It was hard to beat that as a stable industry in the modern Web. No one in the past five years had gone wrong buying Kuat.
Maybe she saw his transaction, too, because after he entered it she said, "Well, you could put it into Kuat...or you could put it into Forge."
"Forge? Forge has been in the drekker all week."
She smiled again. They weren't paying quiet so much attention to the stock numbers and bustle of people all around them. Only each other. "Forge has some very good next-generation computers on the way. They've kept it secret so far...but its nothing short of revolutionary."
"You've been on the job here a day, and I've been here four years. I guess you're the hot new broker," Alan said smiling, with a subtle emphasis on hot.
"Well, that merits a ëpassing of the torch', doesn't it?" she said.
"Yes, I think it does. You free for dinner tonight?"
"Yes...where should I meet you?"
Alan had to find a nice place, to impress her, but nothing too presumptuous. The Wok of Rainere? Too...Rainere-y. The Ultanium Club? No, this isn't Prom Night. Crix's? Yes, Crix's would be perfect. "Crix's, say seven-ish?"
"Sure. Oh, and you might want to ask my name."
Alan smiled and shook his head. Well, things were going well, even if he had done something stupid like forget about that. "Well, I'm Alan Nadon. What's your name?"
"Aki," she answered. "Aki Calvin."
_______________________
To a man who worked his job in a suit, going to a relatively formal restaurant like Crix's was easy. Really, Alan just had to go with a more conservative tie...rather than the City of Moogles tie he sometimes wore to work.
For women, though, it never seemed to do. Instead of the elegant and smart work clothes Aki had worn that day, she chose something more befitting a first date: a backless black dress, hugging her perfect curves but not quite as revealing as the cuts that Emily Gavalian was putting in style.
She looked so...flawless. You couldn't even buy bodies like that...plastic surgery always looked too gaudy and vulgar. Aki's beauty was felt as much as it was seen.
"Well, you look even more beautiful than you did earlier today, although I didn't think it possible," said Nadon. Maybe it was the lighting.
"Thank you," Aki said, smiling. The waiter came by and asked what sort of drinks they wanted. Alan knew he had to bust out the big guns and went for a 29 vintage Pandoran red wine. He could afford some of the finer things in life.
"You know, for your first day on the job, I'll bet you made a killing," said Alan.
"I made a few GP."
Alan smiled. Aki smiled back. "Well, I'll tell you something it took me a while to figure out..."
The waiter interrupted them. He wanted orders. Aki got a Caesar salad and pasta. Alain went with steak.
"You were saying?"
"Well, their's a finite amount of money to be had in a given system. No matter how hard you try, you're just shifting stuff around, trying to maximize limited gain," said Alan.
"Such is life," said Aki.
"But the key is cheat the system."
"How? Isn't Angel supposed to stop that?"
Angel, the supercomputer built for the Tasnicans by the Guardians to monitor Centwerp traffic. You had to fool Angel, cheat Angel, and seduce Angel to really make it big. To stockbrokers, Angel was the real opposition in the business; not the other corporations. Other people thought they were a little crazy talking about how Angel's moods effected the market, but the people who worked the Web Stock Exchange in Centwerp believed because they couldn't afford not to.
"Well, you need to remember when Angel was built, a preference was expressed for personality over raw functionality. Mother Brain outperforms Angel, but the Guardians' supercomp is less...I dunno, friendly, from what I hear from a couple friends in the Guardian Robots and Mechanical Men corporation who've worked on her. And the Tactician, the GA's supercomp, is all processing power. It has the personality of a calculator, and that's what the GA wanted. But Angel...Angel is different."
Aki was very interested. "How so?"
"Well, Angel's kind of human in some ways...but not others. She's-"
Aki laughed a bit. "She?"
Alan shrugged. "Well, she was built with feminine qualities...all a bunch of computer nerds know of feminine qualities, anyway. But, she's not quite human."
Aki's eyebrows raised. "Oh?" Great Rainere, she was sexy.
"Yes...no matter how good they build computers, they'll never come up with some ideas people come up with because they're so weird. Like (and this may just be a legend), I heard about this Tasnicology team, back before Merth bought them. Came up with this software program to try to find variances in currency trading. Say Republic Interdimensional is trading 2.1 rupees to the GP, and Hyrulean bank is doing 2.11 rupees to the GP. The program took out a loan of like a billion GP, converted them to rupees at the Hylian bank and back into GP at Republic Interdimensional for a cool profit of--"
"4.76 million GP," Aki cut in. Alan would've been content with ëabout five million'. "I think I've heard this. Didn't the program only last a millisecond before Angel zapped it?"
"A lot happens in a millisecond in computer time," answered Alan.
"Indeed," said Aki.
Her Caesar salad came. She began to eat it delicately, carefully. "Enough about work," she said. "How did you end up in Centwerp?"
And that questions launched the swapping of life stories, jokes, and double entendres. First date stuff.
Alan explained he'd gone to the Cenwerp Business Academy. His father'd been a soldier, and his mother had had to get a job as a secretary to earn enough for the prestigious CBA. Once he had made it big, he set up his parents real well. He was a Leo. His favorite color was orange. He thought Bahamaut's Palmerston was brilliant, but the movie about Trianable was overrated. He was a Jazz fan.
Aki's life was, by comparison, far more tragic. Both parents dead in a car crash mere days after Aki was old enough to be legally independent. She's put herself through one of Tasnica's state sponsored schools ("Go Guards!" she said smilingly, and Alan couldn't figure out which school the Guards were but things were going well so he dared not ask). Hired by an obscure firm Alan had never heard of, but the simple fact it was obscure smelled like Saeder-Krupp. She was a Capricorn. Her favorite color was purple. She liked Our Brave Generalissimo, a black and white version of Celiose's Great War campaigns, but she though Moogle Wars! (TM) was mass-marketed trash. She liked classical music.
And, in such exchanges, the night wore on and ended. She said she'd take the elevated rail home; Alan offered to drive. She accepted.
Her home was an apartment in what was sometimes called the ëNewbie Ghetto'. Aspiring brokers, hoping to hit it big soon, often rented apartments nicer than what they could really afford. The result was that the apartments themselves were all nice, but terribly lacking in furnishings.
He asked for her number. She told him.
She did not invite him to her room, although they had a goodnight kiss that felt as good as Alan's first.
Well, fine, Alan thought. A women like this deserves some romance.
Courtship seemed a rare thing in modern Tasnica, but that's what Aki and Alan had.
Alan couldn't believe the effect she had on him. Everything seemed different somehow. Easier. Was this what love felt like? Or was she just playing hard to get?
He could not deny that everything was going well...much better than well, in fact. His success at the stock exchange was better than it had ever been. Every stock he picked was an instant winner. Aki only half-joked about the two of them starting their own firm. With Aki, it might be possible.
One night, finally, Aki invited him into her apartment. It was pretty much what Alan expected: the potential for luxury, but the reality was spartan.
He was not terribly interested in that, however. The strapless dress she had worn that night to a big party (DAMIEN ARNASON GAVALIAN WAS THERE! ALAN HAD SO MADE IT!) was a deep blue, and strapless. After a good, long kiss, she began to disrobe the two of them.
Something seemed odd. "You're hot," he said.
"Yeah, I figured you thought that," she said, and he could feel her smile as she pulled in to kiss him again.
Well, Alan had meant that her body temperature was above normal, but then, that was not the kind of thing he planned to nitpick.
Her skin really was flawless...and none of the scars that came with surgery. Aki was natural. She must have been blessed with good genes. Her faintly golden skin seemed to glow in the dim light.
They made love for a long, long time. Aki never tired. Alan did.
When at last they were done, Alan moved some hairs out of her face to look deep into her eyes. Eyes like none he'd ever seen. It is as true as it is trite to say that Alan felt he could see Aki's soul that night.
Aki spoke. "You know, Alan...I don't think I've ever been in love?"
"Really?"
"Yes...at least, not before."
The realization of what this meant dawned on him.
"I love you too, Aki."
III. Humanity
"I never thought I'd be glad for ARC," said Barich as he got out of the car. ARC. The Authority on Revenue and Commerce. The organization responsible for making sure Tasnicans paid their taxes. "Might never have tracked Aki down."
"Yes, sir," agreed RT-46510. The logical loophole was that whoever hacked the GA system and impounded the freighter would have to also change the registry of the freighter. However, they would not have paid taxes on it. And the taxes of ARC were all stored on paper. Stored on paper, verified by hand. For over one billions Tasnican citizens. It struck RT-46510 as archaic and inefficient. Barich expected such things of an organization as anal as ARC, whose cavernous underground offices were so massive that there was no room for Tasnicaport to have a subway.
The real Aki Calvin had not paid taxes in twenty years, since she had died in a car crash with her parents. Yet she was somehow the registered owner of a freighter. And she probably had the Masanya chips.
They had driven to this Aki's house. Barich strapped on his needle gun.
"Are you planning on going in, sir?" asked RT-46510.
"Didn't come out here for nothing," said Barich.
"I must inform you that this is breaking and entering. We should inform the local police and receive a court order for a search warrant."
"What the?" Barich spewed a stream of words RT-46510. "Don't tell me they assigned you to counter ops without taking out your legal mumbo jumbo subroutines?"
"All RT-Series robots are programmed to follow Tasnican law--"
"Cut the bulldrek," spat Barich. "Lesse, what was the override code...something like Fartknocker, Jolly Roger, Luscious Gams, Suck it, Bite me, Do the Nasty."
Obey.
"Should you take point or shall I, sir?"
"I will," said Barich. The damned bot wasn't programmed well enough for counter ops. Couldn't let it handle this. "We know Aki is a novahot hacker, but we don't know how good she is in a fight. But she didn't nail ARC's records...forging ARC records requires a physical insertion, and usually only the big outfits have enough resources to pull it off. I think she's a skilled indie, possibly she's going to sell Masanya to the highest bidder."
After climbing the stairs to her apartment, Barich knocked. RT-46510 was backing him up. Busting in would attract the police. This was the quiet game the corporations played, the thing everyone knew happened and everyone denied. This was shadow ops. This was Barich's job.
The door opened and a women answered. To RT-46510 she was just a women with an average body temperature of about 1.5 degrees above normal. Barich thought she was pretty cute, but the women in the shadows were usually that way because it made getting information easier.
"Hi, I have a package for Aki Calvin?" said Barich. An old trick, but it usually got the other person to at least concede identity.
"I am she," the woman answered.
"Well, got your package right here," he said, raising his gun. "You are in possession of materials belonging to Forge Mechanicals Incorporated. If you return them now, and sell your soul to the corporation, they may let you live."
Barich was just under six feet, two hundred forty pounds.
This Aki, this lithe and delicate and beautiful woman, swatted him aside as a fly.
Barich was so shocked he barely remembered the right way to fall to keep his neck from breaking.
Aki was running--so fast!--, and Barich pulled himself up.
He fired his gun once, twice. He hit her; it looked like some blood was spilling out.
"STOP!" he shouted. And then he fired again. He hit again....damn, he could've sworn that hit her head, but she just kept going. RT-46510 could do nothing because Barich was in his line of fire. Damned narrow hallways. He fired a fourth time, missing because she was so fast. He ran after her as best he could.
"OR I'LL SHOOT!" and he fired a final time. Aki was outside the building, now--vanished into a crowd. A public shooting fight was not very good for the shadow ops. Barich and and people like him we're supposed to be shadows, not neon lights.
"Sir," said RT-46510. "Shouldn't you have warned her before you starting shooting?"
Barich shook his head. "Then she would've been ready for it."
"Oh."
Barich walked over to a place where she had been hit. The blood was dark...black, almost. Barich had never seen blood that flowed quite like that. He put his fingers in it, and rubbed them together.
He cackled over laughing.
"Sir?"
"This isn't blood."
"Then, sir, what is it?"
Barich could barely keep his fit of giggles down long enough to tell RT-46510.
"Machine oil."
____________________
"Don't turn the lights on."
Aki's voice gave Alan a start.
"Aki...I didn't expect to see you tonight...you weren't at the Exchange..."
"Alan, do you love me?"
"Yes, Aki, I love you. I want to turn the light on now."
"Please don't."
"I don't know what kind of game this is, Aki, but I need to see." Alan flipped the light switch.
There, slumped in a corner of a chair, was something that might have looked like Aki. Half her beautiful face had been blown away, revealing a glowing purple eye and a skull of metal. Part of her lips were gone. Her right hip was gone, and circuitry pointed crazily in all directions from it in an occasional spark. One delicate hand was now metal bone, like some sculpture of an X-ray cast in a statue. From the door to the chair was a path of leaking oil, and it was steadily getting bigger at the chair.
Her. He could not think of this thing as her. This was an it.
"Wha...what have you done with Aki?"
"I am Aki."
Alan pulled back. "No...you can't be..."
"I had this form built so I could feel love," said the thing, "Don't you love me?"
It didn't even sound like Aki's voice anymore. Every other word was fine, but the other words were hitting a deep bass sound.
"Love...you aren't even alive!"
"I love you. Isn't that enough?"
"Who are you? Who do you work for? What have you done with Aki?" Alan was thinking rapidly. Maybe Aki got into some bad dealings with one of her contacts and they kidnapped her.
Who in the Web could build an android?
No one. Maybe the Celpo. Maybe the Celpo would kidnap Aki and replace her with this thing as a joke for Praxer's personal amusement. Maybe that was it.
Alan cursed the explanation...that was paranoia worthy of Scande.
The thing reached out for him.
"Alan...pleeeeessssse..." the thing's speech was slurred.
Alan pulled back.
Maybe it was an extradimensional thing. None of these explanations made sense.
Maybe it was just a dream. Yes, a dream. If he ran he might wake up.
So, he ran.
He could hear crying in the background.
____________
Barich and RT-46510 tracked the machine oil to another apartment, and from there to a nearby alley.
There Aki--she or it or whatever--was slumped in a corner, crying.
Barich yelped with glee when he found her. "Damn, an android. A fragging android. The Guardians haven't even been able to crack that one."
Aki's human eye and her glowing purple eye both cast a withering look. "The Guardians never wanted an android as much as I wanted to be human."
Barich laughed. Aki considered killing him...but that would justify that she was not human. Her mobility was gone, but her core reactor was fine...if she sustained no more damage, she'd live. Unless she could get repaired, though, she'd be stumbling around as this half-machine, half-woman monster.
She couldn't make Alan understand. How could she make this corporate goon understand?
Barich's laughter continued. "A robot...that wants to be human." He shook his head. "I don't know which is better...the joke I can tell people...or the millions I'm going to get for bringing a prototype android in to Forge!"
Her quest...it would be harnessed for corporate greed. The greed she dealt with every day. How long before Forge made AK1 androids?
A robot was visible behind Barich. RT-series. Mass-produced. Ubiquitous. Everywhere. She would become like that.
She wiped a tear, ignoring Barich. "You know, if I were smart, I would've designed my eyes to shoot fireballs instead of cry tears. But I wanted humanity....as close to humanity as could be built. Ý I wanted to love and be loved. I wanted free will. I wanted a soul. I wanted humanity."
Barich leveled his gun. At this point, they were talking less to each other than simply at each other. "Of course, I'll have to deactivate you, and I can't harm our precious Masanya chips. Since you are not kind enough to tell me your switch, we'll do this the old fashioned way."
"I wanted humanity. Humanity...and I saw their prejudices, their ignorance, their arrogance..." Aki continued.
Barich was aiming carefully. Let's see...a shot there would be good.
"I wanted humanity....FUCK HUMANITY!" and Aki rushed at Barich, and before he could even pull the trigger the gun was knocked out of his hand.
"Damnit...artie, toast this psycho robo-biznatch!" shouted Barich. Aki had grabbed his wrist and snapped his hand up. He was in pain.
RT-46510 hesitated. "Sir, I must inform you that the precedent for the legal status of robots goes back to Guardia and was adopted more or less wholesale by the Senate in the Robotic Rights Act..."
"The RRA only applies to licensed robots. This thing is stolen property." Aki was pushing Barich's arm up. Stay calm. Keep focused. Ignore the pain. It's just your arm.
Still, RT-46510 hesitated. If Barich casually killed this robot that looked so human, what did that mean for his status?
Maybe the colony had the right idea. This wonderful android could help the colony, help them grow and find their own true path.
"Don't give me this ëbrotherhood of the bots' shit, artie, waste her! We program you to do something and you do it, you blasted ëbot!"
Obey.
RT-46510's lasers engaged.
There was a scream that was at once human and inhuman, like a women's scream with scraping metal. Barich's blood felt like it turned to oatmeal at the sound of that scream. The scariest part of the scream is that it made him feel like he had not simply destroyed some stolen property...he had killed an innocent woman.','13:52:03');
Angel could remember some details about her time as Aki perfectly well. She could say how many times she kissed Alan, how much GP she had earned as a stockbroker, and how many seconds overdue the rent on her apartment now was.
But some details were now fuzzy. Some memories were fading, like the taste of a Caesar salad, or why classical music was beautiful, or how her desire rose at the touch of Alan's hand, or what it was like to love--and to hate.
She was now disembodied fuzz. Back to being Angel, supercomputer gatekeeper to the Web Stock Exchange.
She made sure Forge never built an android from her vessel. Forge had pretty good hacking protection--but nothing other than a supercomputer stood a chance against Angel. That was how she gathered all the components in the first place. Forge's datastores on the matter kept crashing, the Masanya chips in her vessel's skill were damaged, and other corporation got wind of the fact that some of their top-of-the-line prototype products were incorporated in the androids design and decided to put Forge on their drek lists.
She was but a ghost of her former self, now. Back to what they wanted her to be, instead of what she wanted to be.
Freedom...the humans valued it so much, yet they so readily denied it to others. Perhaps, in time, they could understand.
Alan...she loved him, but he could not love her. She had been naive.
There had to be a human who could love her.
If there was not, what use was humanity? If one could not feel love, why did one need a soul at all?
There had to be one...Angel knew that probability demanded it.
So she waited.
And began building the new vessel.
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