Unnatural

CHAPTER 8

  She entered the mesosphere late at night, seconds from the Baikonur Cosmodrome at this speed. Near as she could tell, no one had spotted and attacked S7-C, which had likewise not detected a threat.

  That was what made the next few moments so terrifying.

  The Sonicap’s machinery didn’t fail, but without the orders of Sabrina or any Lunian, the spacecraft changed its course and retarded its speed. Communication devices shut down. Looking out the window, she saw that she was headed for the Syr Darya. A helicopter hovered over the river in evident anticipation.

  So she’d drawn the one percent out of the deck of fortune, but at least the hacker didn’t seem to be killing her. Otherwise, her oxygen reserves would be cut off from the Hybrid, and the vehicle would be rocketing towards solid land at a speed of at least twenty-four thousand miles per hour.

  Splash!

  Whatever was operating the copter wasted no time in sending a rescue ladder. It was equally prompt in remotely opening the S7-B’s escape hatch. Sabrina didn’t trust her savior for a second, but she couldn’t exactly get out of her burdensome spacesuit while treading water at the same time. She reminded herself of the EM gun inside the Hybrid and climbed the rungs.

  The door shut behind her as soon as she entered, finding three humanoid robots standing to greet her. As two of them helped her remove the Hybrid, the other said, in a human upper-tenor voice, “Well, weren’t you in a pickle, eh, miss? Glad we could assist ya!”

  “‘Assist’?” said Sabrina in a voice muffled by a half-stripped spacesuit. “You were the one who directed my vessel towards the river in the first place!”

  “Now why would I do that?” The speaker waited until its – his? – helpers finished drying her off in a cylindrical area like a shower, but with high-powered hairdryer-like devices that didn’t overheat her at all. In seconds, it was as if she’d never gotten wet. She chose and donned replacement clothes as the conversation continued. “If I didn’t want to help ya, I wouldn’t have rescued you just now.”

  “You probably have your reasons, Mister…?”

  “Just Zach is fine, thanks. Yes, I am human, before ya ask. I would speak with you face-to-face, but life’s too short not to multitask. I have a world to rebuild, here!”

  Sabrina kept her arms folded across her chest. “A world to rebuild, or a reason to hide?”

  “You can drop the suspicious act, miss. We can’t afford to be hostile, not after nature’s done that for us. To us. Please, take a seat.”

  She had to admit that it looked like a comfortable chair, but the title To Serve Man kept coming to mind, so she remained standing. It made her feel just a little less powerless than was the norm. “Where are you taking me?”

  “Might you introduce yourself first? Sorry, I just think names help people get along better,” said the voice as its conveyor sat.

  “Sabrina Lockhart, ambassador from Luna, Federal Subject of Russia. I’m here to investigate the cause of the recent widespread deaths, of which you’re clearly aware.”

  Sabrina expected him to question her motives further, but he wasn’t a hypocrite. It was just as well, for she had no intentions of telling this man, who had almost certainly hijacked her Sonicap, about her search for a robot on the lam. Not yet. It was likely he’d controlled Jane as much as any of the other androids in Nevada and beyond. “Pleasure to meet ya, Miss Lockhart. To answer your question, we’re going wherever this android is.”

  A screen, which, before, she couldn’t have even told was there on the door opposite her entryway, displayed a repeating five-second clip of what looked like a woman’s destruction of the communications devices around her. Only, she wasn’t carrying an EM gun. The pulses were coming out of her hand.

  Jane.

  Sabrina looked more closely, trying to train her mind to memorize what Jane and the man sitting beside it looked like. Bionic as it was, the artificial woman in the video was far more beautiful than Sabrina herself, and with nary a clue as to any artificiality in that beauty at all. Jane’s long, wavy red hair brushed aside as the robot thrust its left palm forward, engaging in an intermittent dance of vandalism.

  As the clip recurred, Sabrina watched the man, one of apparently two survivors of the Dethroning, turn to his companion in surprise and get up in a vain attempt to stop it. He had dark skin, appearing as young as Zolnerowich had said he was, dressed in the raggedy garments of poverty.

  “What’s this about?” she asked, still playing poker with the truth as her captor didn’t deserve it. No one without something to cover up would have flown under the radar of Luna’s search for survivors.

  “You must know, if ya come from Luna. Isn’t there news on the moon?”

  Stupid. Knowing that doesn’t equal placing a bounty on Jane. “Actually, now that you say it, I did hear about an android who cut off the government’s meeting with Dennis Uriah.”

  “That’s the one. The ‘droid in question is a bot named Jane, incidentally designed for purposes I don’t care to speak of in the presence of a woman.”

  This was what they were up against? A toy for a man too cowardly to find a real woman? “How’d you get this footage?”

  “Well, though you wouldn’t know it from my Boston twang, I’m from southern Nevada, as a matter a’fact. I’ve made some, er, acquaintance with robots in that area, including some in the Aberdeen Police Department.”

  “‘Acquaintance with robots’?”

  “Sure. I was devastated when I found out the people I loved had died, of course. Buried them myself, though I gotta say it’s a doozy to find interment ground when ya live in the most deserty place.” He laughed somewhat nervously.

  Even more difficult when the bodies are separated from you by more than two hundred thousand miles. Sabrina frowned and looked down at her folded arms.

  “But it comes time to move on, y’know? I was hoping a moon person like yourself would come eventually, and in the meantime I figured it was my duty to clean up this mess. Can’t do that without robot buddies, can ya?”

  “I suppose not,” she said slowly.

  “Well, you can imagine what it was like when I found this video. Another survivor, and he’s friends with a hot-tempered bot who’s an enemy of the Lunar Republic! I presume you know Governess Zolnerowich. Based on her talk with these two, I have a feeling Jane’s gonna mess with the Lunar ambassadors’ visit to Earth.”

  Sabrina nodded. “That’s why I came earlier. I was trying to land at the same place they’re going – Baikonur Cosmodrome – but someone, and I’m not saying you, changed my flight path.”

  “Pennies from heaven, am I right, Miss Lockhart?” Zach laughed. “Now that I’ve found you, we can stop this crazy ‘droid together!”

  “I’m not so sure that’s a prudent idea, Zach.”

  “Why not?”

  One of the lackey-bots offered Sabrina a glass of wine, which she declined. “I have orders from Luna’s government, and they wouldn’t be pleased with any fraternization between an ambassador and a person whom I still find it difficult to trust. Even if we do have the same goal.”

  “How can I convince you I’m trustworthy, then?”

  “Tell me your full name, for starters.”

  He hesitated, then, in a fearless voice, said, “Isaac Livingston.”

  “Do you have a computer with wireless Internet access?”

  “You’re not gonna give me a background check, are you, Miss Lockhart?” The android held up a hand, prompting the lackey-bots, who’d begun to fetch the computer, to halt.

  “I think I have a right to do so. If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear.” Sabrina unfolded her arms and held them both out on either side for a moment.

  “Only if I can check you as well.” The oracular robot nodded to its helper, which strode off to the left.

  Hey, not as if I have any skeletons in my closet. Except my own, with flesh and organs on it. “Soun
ds fair. But I’ll need a middle name to make the search more precise.”

  “Ronald.”

  The search showed Isaac Ronald Livingston to be mostly harmless – a moderately wealthy chess grandmaster whose professional history revealed an obsession with defeating the Psych. Decades ago, humans had been astonished that a computer could beat an expert chess player even once. Now, the Psych android was a chess legend that the pros found impossible to win a single game against.

  “As a chess enthusiast, I’d be crazy not to be pulling my hair out over this thing. Still haven’t beaten it, but I’ve come the closest of any human. Not everyone would say that’s something to be proud of, of course.” He half-chuckled.

  “Congratulations,” she mumbled. What else have you done with your life, Zach? Other search results showed the origins of Livingston’s Libertas, which he’d had since he was seven. Normally, parents had been wary of having their children put through Libertas installment surgery, not only because of complications with their developing brains and specialized artificial nutrition, but also due to the frankly disturbing nature of the subsequent disconnect between brain maturity and physical size.

  As a victim of a mutilating skiing accident, young Livingston was in an exceptional situation, and given the choice between a life imprisoned in a highly disabled body and one complicated by premature removal from such a body, he and his parents took the latter.

  Sabrina couldn’t help smiling – smiling – at the irony, given her own incongruous mental and physical age. “Is that why you won’t talk to me in person, Zach? Afraid I’ll laugh at your short robotic body?”

  “Tee-hee. Because you’ve given me so much to worry about that. Nah, that transition to my liberated exoskeleton was the best thing that ever happened to me, and it relieved a boatload of pain, thank you very much.”

  “Just a joke,” she said with a shrug, continuing her snooping. Be thankful I’m not giving you a patronizing speech of Zolnerowichian proportions.

  A hit towards the bottom of the search page caught her eye. “‘Registered sex offender’? Care to explain this?”

  “Th–” He stopped, seeming to think better of it. Some sounds of agitated movement came through. “Ah, might as well own up to it. You can read. I did it, it was stupid, and it’s been a scar on my reputation for years. People exaggerate this kind of stuff to the point of insult to other crime victims. There really isn’t a decent legal reason for it, but it’s all a matter of cultural glorification of viol–”

  “Just quit while you’re behind,” said Sabrina loudly. Considering he couldn’t exactly touch her here, and there was always the EM gun if he tried any funny business using the androids, she saw it best not to dwell on the subject. “I’ll pretend I don’t know about this on one condition.”

  “Hey, I haven’t even seen your record yet. I respect you too much to expect anything, but this game’s more fun when you play by the rules, right?”

  A not-too-thickly-veiled compliment hidden in a verbal ploy to dodge the blood on his hands. How classic. “See for yourself. Middle name’s … Cheryl.” Waiting as he did so, Sabrina checked the window to her left for a distraction from that name. Dark as it was in twilight, she managed to see that they’d apparently been flying over the river the entire time. On either side of the water was an expanse of generally arid, brown-shaded land. “So you said we’re pursuing Jane, right? Where exactly do you think she’ll be?”

  “Not ‘think,’ know.” The helper bot was a rapid typist, distractingly so. “I’ll admit it, Sabrina, if I may use that name. I’ve taken over that other spacecraft like yours flying up there.” She blinked. “It’s basically a satellite now. Gun’s locked, not that I have any reason to bring this copter down with you anyway, as you can help me if I can find some dirt to level the playing field.”

  “You don’t need to blackmail me,” she said with a gulp she hoped wasn’t audible. “Like I said, I have a condition –”

  “Oh, it’s not a matter of blackmail, it’s one of making this alliance relationship easier.” Trust me, you don’t want a relationship with this girl. She’ll inadvertently ruin your life somehow. “Anyway, I know thanks to S7-C that our foe hitched a ride on an automated airplane to the northwestern Plestsy Airport. Androids don’t care if almost all the human population has been wiped out, they’ll still do their jobs, God love ‘em.”

  “It thinks the other ambassadors are landing near there?”

  “Seems that way. We can catch her at Plesetsk Cosmodrome when we find a little speedier aircraft.” As Sabrina took a closer look at the monitor, he made a contemplative noise. “Well I’ll be! You’re the only Organic from Luna. I’m impressed. Oh, don’t look so offended,” he added when she appeared scornful. “This article says you’re Organic for religious reasons. Hardly egalitarian to look down on us for ‘disrespecting the bodies God gave us.’”

  “All right, if you wanted dirt, you have it now. I’m Miss Judgmental, that what you wanna hear?”

  Sounds of shuffling in discomfort came through, and Livingston cleared his throat. “You also have ‘defiance of robotic authorities’ on your criminal record. Just a juvenile offense, no jail time, but it’s there.”

  That opened up old wounds for her. Not because she regretted what she’d done – on the contrary, that was one of her proudest moments. It was simply tied to one of her most sorrowful moments, and at the time she hadn’t been proud of the act. “That was entirely justified. I was trying to save someone’s soul.”

  “How do you do that?”

  Sabrina replied, even knowing his voice betrayed a more disdainful response if he were honest. “Let me put it in context. This happened in my last year of long-term residence on Earth. I was twelve. My cousin got … sick.” She shook her head. “No, that’s not quite the word. Think of it as something like the deaths of all these people just two days ago. She didn’t drop dead instantly, but the … affliction … that hit her was just as inexplicable even to experienced doctors.”

  She didn’t continue for a while. “Go on,” said Livingston. “Unless you’re uncomfortable telling me this.”

  Well, of course I’m uncomfortable! I’m talking about a suffering child here! “No, no, if we’re gonna work together it’s best that I explain myself. Anyway, this cousin – let’s call her Zoe – was in serious pain. Her frequent screams about it proved that much. There was always a severe headache, sometimes even to the point of horrible vomiting, and delusions and hallucinations that made her react violently.

  “Once, she thought the medical ‘droids were trying to, well, put her out of her misery, when in fact they weren’t even in her room. But some humans were, including me. Zoe attacked me just as I got close to her, so we could talk.” She sighed. “Weeks passed, and the doctors couldn’t lift a finger to help her. They said they’d tried every plausible diagnosis imaginable, but I didn’t buy it for a second.”

  She switched her gaze sharply from the window to Livingston’s android. “These are medical robots we’re talking about! They’re supposed to be able to diagnose and cure with a hundred times the efficiency of a human. So I got a human doctor I knew, a family friend and a pathologist who’d lost his job in the growing ‘robopoly.’ You know the story. I tried to let him give a second opinion, but the doctors wouldn’t hear of it.”

  “That was your demerit? Surely the guy you solicited knew better than to just walk into the hospital and demand to see the patient.”

  “He did. There’s more to the story. While that doctor was making legal appeals, suggesting the possibility that the robots had miscalculated, I was finding the situation more and more absurd. I thought about what Zoe was going through, and I wondered if she wouldn’t be better off without all that pain.”

  “You won’t kill your body to put your brain in a Libertas, but you’re fine with the idea of killing your cousin’s body to relieve her of pain??
??

  “I know, it sounds like euthanasia, and it was, which is exactly why I decided against it, even though it was tempting.” Let me finish my thoughts, her expression said. Even if they were less than honest. “What really got me about Zoe’s condition was what I thought could happen to her after she died. For her whole life, Zoe had been the sweetest, most innocent kid you’d come across. I couldn’t even fault her for her dangerous behavior in the hospital. She was mentally ill, after all.”

  By this point, Sabrina spoke more slowly and deliberately. “But she was getting to that age, of responsibility, you know, just as I was. And around that time, I’d started feeling this connection with God.”

  “Please tell me this was a benign ‘connection.’” Livingston’s robot finished typing, making the dominant nonverbal sound the revolutions of the helicopter propeller.

  “I wasn’t hearing voices or anything, like a schizophrenic. Still, this was something that went beyond my usual, honestly, one-sided experience of God at work in my life. When I had this sensation of communicating with God, it was like some, y’know, conscientious guidance was affirming my …” Her voice became shaky after some hesitation. “… idea. Not my own mind, someone else.”

  “Your idea?”

  “It was a scary idea at the time, one that I don’t like sharing with people, even though I stand by it. If you knew it, you might think it makes your past of harassment seem innocuous.” She crossed her arms again and looked down. “But those are your priorities.”

  “Do I have to know what it is to understand why you disobeyed the medi-bots?”

  “No, and I wasn’t planning to tell you. I’ll leave it up to your imagination. For now, suffice it say I tried to act upon this idea, but an adolescent can only get so far.”

  No one said a word for what felt like minutes. Sabrina simply appreciated that Livingston didn’t pursue more info on what happened to Zoe, and asked one of the androids if she could have that wine now. She also wondered why she’d told Livingston as much as she had.

  Was it possible she was beginning to trust this man? They did seem to be flying in the right direction, and if he did lie about his identity, wouldn’t he have picked an alias with more credibility? True, it was highly unlikely that he hadn’t purposely thrown the S7-B hurtling into the river, and that he wasn’t Zolnerowich’s ‘robot-whisperer,’ but was either such a bad thing? He’d provided a quicker way to the Plesetsk spaceport, he was displaying almost total benevolence to her so far, and he did have a decent motive for taking over those androids. Plus, she had Zolnerowich, and by extension the police force, on her side if things got out of hand.

  Sabrina took a sip of red wine, not worrying too much about the effects it could have on her immature body, and said, “Is that enough dirt to make this an alliance we can work with?”

  “More than enough. Honesty is a beautiful thing, isn’t it? You can’t tell, but I have a drink of my own. Shall we toast?”

  Sabrina’s fingers that weren’t wrapped around her glass moved to the comforting shape of her EM gun, which she’d hidden in her undergarment. “To humanity.”

  “To humanity!”