I Heart Robot (23 page)

“Prove it. Show me your arm.”

I roll up my right sleeve and show off pristine flesh.

“The other one.”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Because my guardians used to put cigarettes out on me.” The words come out of nowhere accompanied by an unwanted flood of emotion overwhelming my circuits.

Tyri’s face contorts, and she presses her fingers to her lips. “Codes, Quinn. I had no idea.” She reaches a hand toward me but I back away. “I’m so sorry.”

“Forget about it.” Please, please, please. Let’s go back to the way things were half an hour ago.

“Have you told someone? Do the police know? Is that why you’re on your own?”

“I said forget it.”

“Forget it? You were abused and I should just
forget
it?” Her hands ball into fists.

“I think I should leave.” I gather up my violin and head for the door.

“I’m only trying to help. Please Quinn.” She runs after me and there’s an ache in my fuel-cell as I meet her gaze. Her fingers graze my elbow, and I’d like nothing more than to scoop her into my arms and pretend I’m human, but that’s never going to happen.

“Can we practice again before Saturday even if I am going to lose?” She attempts a smile.

“We’ll see.” I shove my feet into my boots and escape the bungalow. The last thing I need is Tyri reporting my invisible scars to the authorities in some misguided attempt to help me. This is why getting close to humans is dangerous. It never ends well for the android.

Quinn disappears behind a line of fiery oaks. Glitch bashes my leg with her nose, looking up at me as if she knows how alone I feel with only a robot and cyborg dog for company, with the boy I should love hundreds of kilometers away, and the boy I definitely shouldn’t think about loving walking away.

Dejected, I return to my bedroom and curl up with Glitch. Picking up my moby, I turn on the device. New SIM, no password, all my old contacts erased. I dial Asrid’s number from memory and wait for her to answer.

“What’s up?”

“Sassa, Quinn’s not on drugs.”

“You asked him?”

“Yeah. It’s sort of worse than that.”

“I’m listening.” The background noise diminishes, and there’s the click of a lock.

“You alone?”

“Yup. Tell me everything.”

I take a deep breath. This isn’t my story to tell, and yet there’s no way I can carry it by myself. I have to tell someone. “Quinn was abused by his guardians.”

“Abused how?”

“He said they put cigarettes out on him. Who knows what else.”

“That’s really awful.”

“I know.”

“Did he show you?”

“No, he wouldn’t.”

“Then how do you know he’s telling the truth?” she asks, incredulous.

“Who lies about that?” I chew on the corner of my pillow.

“To cover up drug abuse, sure. Has it been reported?”

“Quinn didn’t want me to.”

“Sounds dubious.”

“You don’t think he’s, I don’t know, embarrassed maybe?”

“T, my dad’s a shrink. I’m telling you, something’s off about this.”

“Maybe I could get Quinn to talk to your dad. Is he still doing pro bono work?”

“Anything to avoid taxes.” She pops bubblegum. “Maybe we can arrange some casual meet-up. Organize another date, and then Dad and me’ll just happen to come by. My dad can suss him out.”

My brain hurts. It’s as if I can feel the cogs turning, the pistons pumping at max. “I don’t know.”

“Up to you. Whether he’s on drugs or the abuse story is true, Quinn’s clearly a guy in need of help. You’d be doing the right thing.”

“You sure?”

“Absolutely.” There’s a crash on Asrid’s end followed by a string of expletives as she screams at her brothers to play with their light sabers outside only. “The twins tried to Jedi mind-trick my door with their heads.”

“I’ll let you know once I arrange something with Quinn. You sure your dad’ll do it?”

“T, when has my dad ever not done something for his darling little girl?”

The conversation ends with the sound of a boy crying and Asrid yelling. It’s too quiet in my house, silent except for Glitch’s sleepy breaths and the grumbling refrigerator. Whatever Miles is doing, he’s doing it silently. The emptiness becomes too much, and I put on Beethoven’s complete symphonies. The 5
^th
symphony begins with Fate banging on the door. I activate my desktop.

Don’t know if you can access email since I have the moby—
’the’ moby is better, right? No possessive pronoun or insinuation that Quinn did something wrong.

—
but I thought you might want to take a look at all the files from my mom anyway. Could we meet for coffee or a chat somewhere? What about tomorrow evening?

Love Tyri

Regards Tyri

Sincerely Yours Tyri—
Why is this so complicated?

Tyri

I attach the files and hit send before I spend another ten minutes obsessing over my salutation. Now I just have to wait.

***

Waiting sucks. In seven minutes, I’ve checked my email twenty times for a response as Beethoven’s symphony thunders to a close. No point wallowing when there’s an entire study to explore. Mom’s always been cagey about the other half of my DNA, but it’s about time I know who I really am.

Mom might be home any minute. The study is still unlocked, and Miles passes me a desultory glance from the kitchen where he’s chopping carrots. I stalk into the study and start searching through databoards. They all have the same mythological password. Not too security savvy, Mom.

Despite the ease of access, I find nothing. I turn on Mom’s personal computer, which is password protected as well. The Odin crow configuration fails, as do birthdays, social security numbers, and everything else I can think of. I know my birth certificate lists my father as anonymous, but maybe I can dig through hospital records and find out more. I scoot back to my bedroom and get onto the Net.

I type my date and place of birth into the public record and registry site. There’s a list of babies born on February thirteenth, but my name’s not on it.
There must be a glitch in the system
. I rerun the query. Still nothing. Now there’s a hollow feeling inside my stomach and an emptiness spreading in my chest. I know I technically don’t have a dad, but I never thought not being able to put my father’s name on my birth certificate meant no certificate at all. It’s as if I’m not a real person. An unexpected tear trails down my cheek as I run the query again.
It must be a clerical error
. I can’t not exist. I do exist, even if I don’t have the paper work to prove it.

As a last resort, I type my name into the search engine and hit go. As I wipe my tears, two results pop up: one listing me as a student at St Paul’s, and the other listing me on the BPO program for the upcoming Independence Day performance. That’s it – the sum total of my existence.

I’m not even a quarter of the way through the search results for European sperm donors searching for anything in their profiles that shouts out ‘dad’ when Mom gets home. It’s about time she gave me some straight answers.

–Transmission received

I read as I walk, the text scrolling through my vision, rendering the background a blur. Tyri sent me the entire prototype document, including red warnings of confidentiality.

The Mjölnir virus. The Old Norse word rolls around my head. Thor’s hammer. Thor. Is it more than a coincidence that Tyri’s name means Thor’s warrior?

I skip over the virus notes, the pages I already read, and skim back over graphs and schematics to the specifications listed for the T-class super-android. The specs read like those for any advanced humanoid. It could be a description of a Quasar, but it’s not. According to the document, this model would be a human analogue capable of sleeping, eating, breathing, and bleeding, ‘indistinguishable from human to the layman’s eye.’

“See Sal, told you I wouldn’t have to be a real boy to eat cake.” My smile is short lived. Comprehension hits me as hard as a strike from Thor’s hammer itself. My knees buckle, and I stagger into the doorway of a bakery already closed for the night.

Thor’s hammer. Thor’s warrior. But she breathes; she eats. It’s impossible.

I scan through the data again. The prototype exists. It’s location unspecified. I scroll to the schematics. The prototype is female.

Nausea rocks my system, confusing my circuitry and compromising my balance. The weight of the knowledge is like an anvil crushing my brain.

Maybe the reason Tyri seems so human is because she doesn’t know she’s not.

***

It’s dark by the time I return to the docks. Hearing hushed voices and seeing the flare of flashlight, I slow my approach, half expecting Kit and his Solidarity groupies. Three men stumble out of the container carrying my duffel bag, one brandishing Sal’s gun.

“Hey, stop.” I shout before I’ve fully considered the consequences. They turn and blind me with the flashlight. One takes a sip from my can of Cruor before passing it on. Androids.

“This your stash?” The tallest of the three raises the can before taking another swig. Anger warms my core, and I slip the violin case from my shoulder, nudging it into the shadows with my foot. There’s no chance of passing for human with a half empty can of synthetic blood.

“Walking fuel can,” one says in a voice I recognize from the day they attacked me at the hydrogen station.

“Run and I’ll put a bullet through your core.” The dark-haired android smiles and aims Sal’s gun.

“What difference does it make?” They’ll bleed me dry anyway.

“We don’t want to kill you, just drain you.” The androids approach.

“Nice and easy.” The tall one puts the barrel of the gun against my forehead. They’re Z-class models, their tags visible beneath their tattered sleeves, commissioned for private security and built to break heads. Even with my martial arts patch, the odds of taking down all three aren’t in my favor.

The dark haired one pulls up my sweater and pokes my ribs. The third android watches in silence, manning the flashlight. When strange fingers activate my haptic sensor, my self-preservation protocol kicks in, and I lunge at the one with the gun. He fires and the bullet burns a hole straight through my shoulder as I force the android to the ground. The pain is a starburst of colors I can’t name. It smells like the interior of Asrid’s hoverbug.

I grapple with the others as they haul me away, landing carborundum-crushing kicks to jaws and kneecaps. As I break one, the others heal and rise until my adrenaline dose is spent. They force me to my knees, jamming a canister into my side. My field of vision narrows as hydrogen leaves my system. Cruor drips from the wound in my shoulder my nanytes can’t fix without fuel. My eyes close of their own volition, and I struggle against automatic suspension, fighting to retain sensory perception.

“Done.” The android removes the canister. One of them grabs my arm and taps my wrist.

“It’s a Quasar.”

“Could be worth something.”

“Can’t transport it like this. Leave it in the container. We can come back later.”

“Check his pockets.” Fingers rifle through my clothes and find the wallet full of Sal’s cash.

“Score. Think we … ”

My hearing fades as my consciousness battles system failure. I’m floating then falling. My cheek presses against cold metal, and a vibration resonates up from the ground through my bones. My emergency protocol is still set to ping Sal. Operating on fumes, I reset the emergency contact and send out an SOS complete with GPS co-ordinates before my processor shuts down.

“Tyri, be a dear.” Mom passes me her coat to hang up as she pries her feet from toe-pinching stilettos. I guess her ankle must be all healed up if she managed to walk in those shoes.

“How was your day?” I ask.

Her gaze narrows, and she gives me a knowing look. “Just fine. How was yours?” Mom plays along, but I know she knows I have an agenda.

“Interesting.”

She sails through the lounge with me trailing in her wake. She goes straight to the study, the door ajar.

“What—how?” Mom’s lost for words.

“I’m not sure why you trust Miles with a key and not me.”

“Miles? What are you talking about? How did you get in here?” She grabs my arm. She’s scaring me.

“Ow, Mom. You’re hurting me.”

She eases up her grip, but doesn’t let go.

“How did you get in?” Her face is turning pink.

“Miles has a key.”

“Impossible!” Mom drags me into the kitchen and watches Miles with a hawk-eyed gaze as he peels papaya.

“Miles, tell Mom you opened the study for me.”

He turns and flashes orange.

Mom scowls at me, her fingers tightening around my arm again.

“You have a key for the study, right?” My voice hitches up a tone.

Miles cocks his head, still flashing orange. Is it possible for him to pretend? This
is
the same robot who gets passive-aggressive with raspberry jam.

“Stop lying to me,” Mom gives my arm a shake. “You got into my study, the how barely matters. What I want to know is why?”

“Why?” I jerk my arm out of her grip and put some distance between us. “Because for almost seventeen years you’ve refused to tell me who my father is, and I want to know.”

“Your father?” The anger coloring her skin drains away, leaving her wan.

“Yeah, my dad. You know, the random guy whose sperm you borrowed.”

“Tyri.” Mom fiddles with the buttons on her cardigan. “You shouldn’t have gone snooping. You know there’s sensitive information in there about M-Tech.”

“If you’d told me the truth, I wouldn’t have to go snooping.”

“You could’ve asked.”

“I did.”

Mom tries to come up with another excuse but fails. This time I’m not backing down. I want to know the truth. Mom stares at me and I stare back, neither of us wanting to be the first to look away.

The impasse lasts several awkward moments before Mom sighs.