Authors: Eliza Victoria
Project 17 (12 page)
Lester sat in front of his computer. “Okay,” he said. “Okay, okay. Give me the damn phone.”
“You’re willing to let your name appear in their database?” Lillian said, when Max handed Lester her own cell phone.
Max shook her head. “Prepaid. Cheap SIM. I can just throw it out after—”
“Hello?” Lester said. “Can you hear me? That robot assassin they showed on the news is in my house, and where are the fucking Sentries posted outside my building when you need
them?”
The noise stopped. Lester rattled off his address as they slowly stepped out of his room.
“Hurry up!” Lester said. His face fell after he ended the call. “I hope they don’t hurry up.”
Al had cracks on his cheek and jaw, and his upper right arm was ripped open, but he was still standing.
Felisa was on the floor, facedown, felled by a chop to the back of the neck.
“I managed to cut her central link to her Mother Program,” Al explained.
“How did you know how to do that?” Max asked.
“I taught him,” Lester said.
“You taught a robot how to disable other robots?
Jesus.”
“We need to get out of here, guys,” Lillian said.
“There’s a way out back, Max knows,” Lester said. “Go with them Al, no need for Sentry to see you. You’re protecting them now.”
“Yes,” Al said.
“And bring this thing,” Max said, pointing at the floor.
“Wait, you’re taking Girl X?” said Lester. “What proof will I show Sentry?”
“Take photos,” Max said. “Tell them she went away. I’m not handing this robot to them.”
Al lifted her and set her by the wall. Click, click, click. Then they bundled up Felisa in a blanket, and Al carried her over his shoulder like a dead body.
They slipped out before Sentry came.
Jamie picked them up behind the building while what looked like the rest of the Sagrada Familia population converged in front with the media vans. After Al dumped Felisa into the trunk and
settled in the backseat with the two girls, Jamie immediately launched into a declaration of possible escape plans.
“The Philippines only has extradition treaties with ten countries. Australia, Canada, China, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Korea, Micronesia, Switzerland, Thailand, and the United States. We can
go anywhere outside of those ten countries. Brazil! We can go to Brazil! We don’t need a visa to get to Brazil. I might finally land me a decent boyfriend. By the way, who’s this
guy?”
“Good day, sir,” Al said. “My name is—”
“We have an extradition treaty with Micronesia but not with Brazil?” Lillian said.
“Will everyone just calm the fuck down?” Max said. “We’re not going to be runaways, Jamie.”
“We have a plan,” Lillian said. “Turn here.”
They parked in front of the Doloreses’ house. Lillian saw the sign first, but she didn’t want to believe it. She left the car with Max and tried the front door. Locked. The windows
were dark.
“No,” Lillian whispered under her breath, then louder, as she banged on the door. “No!” Paul’s phone number had been deactivated.
Max tried the number painted on the FOR LEASE OR SALE sign. Asked for a forwarding address.
There was none.
*
@PDINews_Luzon BREAKING: “Girl X” breaks into an apartment in Sagrada Familia in Hagonoy, Bulacan and escapes. No reported
casualties.
@ANCAlerts Local police releases photos. Victim to remain anonymous. http://ancstream.com/…
@GMATweets Hagonoy police: Apartment resident has no priors, definitely no connection to Morales. We still don’t know Girl X’s
motive.
@shaeena There is no motive! This is a defective robot on the loose!
@ponzi So this is not a #robotassassin?
@PDINews_Luzon Hagonoy police: One thing is sure—there is more than one Girl X.
@isha_babe Could be an army. D: RT @PDINews_Luzon Hagonoy police: One thing is sure – there is more than one Girl X.
@Rex_T Who’s controlling them??? RT @PDINews_Luzon Hagonoy police: One thing is sure – there is more than one Girl X.
@ANCAlerts NOT OURS: Northpoint-Pascual and Legacy deny knowledge of Girl X. http://ancstream.com/…
@ANCAlerts JUST IN: Northpoint-Pascual appoints Nikolas Morales as Acting CEO.
@GMATweets Northpoint-Pascual to announce schedule of Margaret Morales tribute program.
*
“Paul Dolores is no longer connected to Seton,” Jamie intoned, hanging up the phone.
They were in the living room of Jamie and Max’s apartment. Lillian was sitting on the floor, knees pulled up, head in her hands. “Shit,” she said. “Shit.” Al was on
a chair, looking at her and looking worried. Jamie had earlier wrapped a piece of cloth around Al’s right arm, making him look like a forlorn combatant. Max was arranging Felisa on the couch.
The back of Felisa’s neck was a gaping cavity.
Jamie sat beside Lillian, who looked up and said, “They could be anywhere.”
“I don’t blame them, you know,” Jamie said. “If I had a hand in creating—” he tried to look for a word to encompass the robot, the room, everything that had
happened, “
this,
I would run away, too.”
“But Caleb could stop this.”
“Could he?”
“I think I could switch her on now,” Max said, beckoning them to move closer. “No robot insignia on her hand. That’s the death penalty right there.”
“You’re sure she has no tracking device?” Jamie asked.
“I scanned her back at the Master’s house,” Al said. “I have disabled it, along with her link to the Mother Program.”
“Master, huh?”
“Do you think we can override the Mother Program?” Lillian asked. “Deactivate all the other Felisas?”
“If we could access it,” Max said. “If we can even find out where it is.”
Max pressed down on Felisa’s wrist, and the robot opened her eyes. She tried to sit up straight but Al had ruined her spinal column, so she remained there with her back against the couch,
head tilted to the side like a paralytic, a stroke victim.
“Main link to Central missing,” Felisa said. “Mechanic needed.”
Max leaned forward, hands on her knees. “This is the Mechanic,” she said. “Where is Central?”
Felisa looked at Max, and quickly looked away. “That information is confidential.”
“Who is your Mechanic?”
“That information is confidential.”
“Is it Caleb Dolores?”
“That information is confidential.”
“Is it Ezekiel Ruiz?”
“That information is confidential.”
“Is it Nikolas Morales?”
“That information is confidential.”
“What is your name?”
“That information is confidential.”
“What is your directive?”
Felisa blinked. “Unknown.” Blink, blink. “Main link to Central missing. Mechanic needed.”
“It feels like we’re talking to my microwave oven,” Jamie said. Max sighed and switched her off.
*
Max couldn’t reprogram her. She didn’t know how. It was Lester who knew but he had gone back to his parents’ home in Malolos, a Sentry posted outside the gate for his
protection. Felisa was now just a chunk of metal and silicone occupying a corner of Max’s closet.
Lillian went back to her apartment, but only to get her laptop and some clothes. The safest place now was wherever Al was. If Lester hadn’t converted the Dancer to a personal bodyguard,
there was no way they would’ve escaped Felisa.
She sat in the living room with Al, on standby mode, the robot’s approximation of sleep.
She opened her email, typed Paul’s address.
No.
She closed the window. Created a new email account.
Northpoint-Pascual would probably be monitoring their emails. And how sure was she that the brothers’ accounts were still active?
How sure was she that they were still even alive?
But what else could she do? She could write a letter but she didn’t know which door to slide it under or in what direction her smoke signals should go.
We have Felisa.
We have 17.
Backspace.
The spam filter, she thought. The Spam folder would be her friend.
We are once again inviting guests to a special, one-time only discounted dinner for two at the Marquise Gelie. Begin your evening with an amuse bouche sure to titillate your senses! Follow
the single bite with slow-cooked pork flown in from Italy, and macaroons from the cafes of Paris. Sit back and eat your fill in comfort and delight, as though
we have your mother
as our special guest chef.
Lillian added a stock photo of a young woman and her mother drinking wine. Pressed Send.
The message did not bounce back.
*
@ANCAlerts BREAKING: SENTRYSERV WEBSITE HACKED http://ancstream.com/…
Retweeted by @Rex_T and 312 others
@Rex_T SentryServ down 21 seconds and counting. The page keeps saying “Unmask the Controllers”.
*
College students rally in front of SentryServ HQ, urge gov’t to “unmask the Controllers” of Girl X
Five thousand students marched to the Sentry Service headquarters on Roxas Boulevard to denounce the government’s alleged lack of transparency
about the robot dubbed “Girl X”.
“The government has a runaway robot,” said student leader Mina Martin, president of the Philippine Federation of Students.
The students alleged that, like the Sentries, Girl X was a P3 (public-private partnership) between the government and “either Legacy or
Northpoint-Pascual or both”.
“They need to stop lying to us,” Martin said. “They need to tell us the truth. Who are Girl X’s Controllers? Who made
her?
“Crime is at an all-time low right now. I am lucky to live in this age. But if the government sold this technology, it will be a return to
organized crime, to political violence. Girl X will put an end to the order we fought so hard to have.”
The same sentiment had been making the rounds of social networking sites. (read more)
*
Sentry 2.0?
(continued)
Meanwhile, robot experts are alleging that Girl X is similar to the Sentries.
“Like the Sentries, Girl X is a low-maintenance model,” said Joseph Sarmiento, PhD, of the University of the Philippines’ Department
of Robotics. “As we all know, Sentries are given a set of directives but they can also make value judgments based on the environment and the changes in a given situation. They have
Controllers but the Controllers do not control them. The Controllers merely monitor them in case they malfunction and need to be shut down.
“Any Sentry can operate without a Controller. So Girl X may not even have a Controller. Maybe she was simply given a directive and released into
the wild.”
(read more)
*
SentryServ fighting to shut down unmaskthecontrollers.com
(continued)
The site, which went live Friday night, contained photos of men and women alleged by the site’s authors as Sentry Controllers.
“An innocent civilian is attacked in his own home, and Sentry takes an hour to respond,” the message reads. “These men and women are
allowing Girl X to continue her rampage. They may even be behind Girl X. They are the Enemy, the Controllers of the Controlling Republic. They should be shut down.”
SentryServ has yet to identify the owner of the site, but said that those involved “will be punished to the fullest extent of the
law”.
(read more)
*
Man found dead with sign identifying him as “Controller”
SentryServ said a man was found dead Sunday in a hotel in Manila, with a sign left at the scene that read, “This man is a
Controller”.
SentryServ neither confirmed nor denied whether the man, identified as 30-year-old Anthony Seles, was indeed a Controller, but reports said his photo
appeared on the controversial site, unmaskthecontrollers.com.
Seles died of several stab wounds.
Neighbors described Seles as a quiet, friendly man.
“I thought he worked in advertising,” said 29-year-old Ceres Rey, who moved into Seles’s apartment building three months
ago.
Rey said when Seles saw his photo on the site, he laughed and told her they might have just grabbed random photos from Facebook.
“But he was worried about his safety, of course,” Rey said. “He said there are nuts out there.”
(read more)
*
SentryServ beef up city security as second “unmasking” victim found dead
@ANCAlerts BREAKING: Students march to Northpoint-Pascual http://ancstream.com/…
*
Five days passed since Lillian had sent the email. It had gone out into the ether, read or unread, still unanswered. She had moved back to her apartment, and Jamie, who was finally allowed to
use his vacation leaves, moved in with her, sleeping on the floor of her bedroom.