Single Wired Female (Wired for Love Book 2)
Read Single Wired Female (Wired for Love Book 2) Online
Authors: Greg Dragon
Tags: #Mystery; Thriller & Suspense, #Thrillers & Suspense, #Technothrillers, #Science Fiction & Fantasy, #Science Fiction, #Cyberpunk
This is a book of fiction. Names, characters, and situations are of the author’s imagination. Any similarities to people, places, or crimes is purely coincidental.
No part of this book may be reproduced, stored, or transmitted without the express written consent of the author.
Copyright © 2016
Thirsty Bird Productions
What was it that gave her away? What was it? She looked, spoke, and learned the way a human did, but there was something overt that had alerted the woman to scream out “unrestrained” at the top of her lungs.
She understood friendship. It was one of the things about the world that resonated within her due to the binary nature of the equation. You had friends and you had non-friends; it was that simple, wasn’t it? Friends looked out for you. They loved you and appreciated you, whereas non-friends were apathetic. Non-friends would call the authorities if they thought that you were really an android, unrestrained.
Tricia stood up with her mouth agape as she stared at the woman who was screaming at the top of her lungs. She was supposed to be her friend but now she was screaming and people were beginning to stare.
A slender but remarkably strong young man took hold of her arm and she reacted by pulling away from him. This didn’t yield the result she wanted and try as she might to free herself, he held onto her firmly. She struggled aggressively and eventually managed to pull free of him. Then another wrapped his arm around her neck to hold her steady while his hands found their way inside of her hair, probing for a power switch that wasn’t there.
During the entire struggle Tricia watched her “friend” continue to scream bloody murder. She tried to send signals of “why?” when their eyes connected but all she got back from the woman was hate.
There could be no happy ending for a captured android. Not in this climate of violent A.I. bounty hunters and the vicious extremists known as the “Sons of Man.” Even the police force had been actively hunting unrestrained androids so sympathy for her plight would be in short order everywhere.
Tricia pulled her head away from the man, a move so awkward in its motion that it couldn’t be something he would have expected from a human being. She spun away from the other man who was moving in to regain her arm and then she bolted for the door like a world-class track athlete.
As she slid out from the convenience store and into the night she looked back at the woman who had exposed her. It was only a mere glance but it was enough. She had felt the confusion of a broken heart once before but this time it registered differently.
After this night, she told herself, she could not afford to make the same mistake again. She could not let her guard down any longer; not if she wanted to be around to experience more. But how did that woman know when everyone else saw her as human?
She crossed the street recklessly, barely avoiding a low-flying car as it headed up towards the upper highway to join the rest of the traffic. She could feel a familiar tingling as it randomly jumped around her body, signaling that she needed to calm down. But how could she calm down with the very real possibility that there could be cops and hungry bounty hunters on her tail?
She had been inside of the store, which meant that her face would be on camera, and she had been revealed as an unrestrained android.
She slowed her run down to a brisk walk, then adjusted her coat and pulled up the hood in order to hide her features. In the past she had used the same hood to make it through the night without harassment. Now she relied on its powers of obscurity as she pushed past the beggars, hustlers, and zombies of the Seattle nightlife.
A thought came to her and she focused on it, trying to see if it would be worthwhile to leave the city and travel to any of the other states and nations that comprised the United States. She had always wanted to visit Los Angeles or Florida since the photographs from both places had always given her good feelings. She felt no real attachment to Seattle outside of familiarity but still she wondered if leaving would be wise since she knew it well enough to be able to stay out of sight.
Tricia stopped below a bridge and stared out into the darkness where a number of homeless people were shuffling around and talking to one another. She recognized a few of them as androids, unrestrained and hidden amongst the unwanted. It made her smile to see them doing so well within their façade but it saddened her that life under a bridge would be the extent of their realities.
It was all black where she walked and her android eyes relied on light in order for her to see. She wandered over to a wall and sat down gingerly waiting for her vision to clear. After a while she began to make sense of her surroundings.
In time she began to see the shapes of men and women but none of them seemed to care that she was there.
Tricia placed her head on her knees and cried over the betrayal that she suffered at the hand of her “friend.” She felt around for the other androids, trying to see what function they served. She saw them doing the same mundane things that the humans were doing. They served no function beyond survival so she decided that perhaps they were in the same predicament she was.
We’re all lost without a home
, she thought to herself and glanced up at the moon which hid behind the clouds. She closed her eyes and pulled her hood down and summoned a memory.
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“Human beings are interesting.” That was what Reynaldo had told her a few years ago when he let her download his memories. He had been a cage fighter, built to look as human as possible, all the way down to having red blood and bruises that would appear whenever he received blunt force trauma.
There were other parts of his anatomy that were added to make him human. These parts were routinely used by both men and women who watched his fights regularly. The money that was made was quite significant, but it was an underground practice that only the richest could afford.
In this particular memory there was a woman, her hair blonde and untethered. She was one of the most beautiful women Tricia had ever seen, and she lay on a bed with her body reclined.
She cooed, “Come on handsome, why the wait? I saw the way you tore that guy to pieces in the ring. Don’t just stand there, come on over here. Give me what I paid for.”
She swung her legs off the bed and marched over to him. Her teeth were bared and her face was red with frustration, which made Tricia flinch from behind the eyes of her friend. The blonde grabbed him by the thing she desired pleasure from. But Reynaldo didn’t reel back or cower like she expected. Instead, he touched her hair and took a tuft of it inside of his fist.
“You brought me here because you’re a nasty girl, Rebecca. I won’t play the part of the warrior paramour for you until you show me some respect,” he said.
Tricia felt like stepping out of the memory and saving herself the embarrassment of watching Reynaldo get taken out of the room and beaten for forgetting his place with a rich human woman. It would not have been so bad if she was watching from a distance but Reynaldo had sent her his full archive of memories. He had done it through waves that transferred the files, which then embedded themselves inside her mind. What he had seen, she could now see, but it was always from his perspective since they were from his mind.
Memories from Reynaldo and other unrestrained friends were stored inside of her head. Memories were good for the loneliest times when the only friend she had was herself.
When Reynaldo pulled on her hair, Rebecca fell to her knees and Tricia had time to scan the room. They were up so high that she could see the entire city, with a spectacular view of the Space Needle. The lights were dimmed and she could see stars against a sky of deep blues and purples. An exterior light source from a neighboring building illuminated the silver sheets on Rebecca’s bed.
The things that the woman was doing to Reynaldo were not new to Tricia in any way. The perspective was interesting—playing the part of the man—and she processed it with delightful interest. Reynaldo lifted up Rebecca and walked her over to the bed and proceeded to do the things that she had hired him to do.
When they were done she fell asleep quickly and slept soundly as the sad gladiator lay awake. Having performed satisfactorily, he walked out to the balcony and stared out at the city. Tricia felt sadness and angst wash through her from the memory, and as Reynaldo stared down she wondered if he had considered jumping.
He had once told her that androids would always be slaves to their human creators but she had assumed that he was old and bitter. She was young and naïve then and didn’t want to believe it but with this memory she understood his negativity. She had argued that there were more humans like Brad, her creator, who would see them as equals despite the laws and the prejudice.
She tried to move Reynaldo’s head from within the memory and found that she could do it quite easily. She looked around the city, at the cloudless sky, and at the flying cars zooming by below them. It was all so beautiful and impressive to her that she closed her eyes and tried to inhale the smell.
Memories don’t yield smells unless he wanted them to, silly
, she thought to herself and tried to step back inside the penthouse. There was an invisible barrier that prevented her from moving and try as she did to break past it, Reynaldo’s memory was at its end and she lost control of his limbs.
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When Tricia opened her eyes it was bright and sunny. Scattered around her in no real order were a number of large boxes and makeshift tents, each with a homeless soul hovering in or around it. She looked down and saw that there was a filthy tarp thrown over her and beyond it stood a tall, hairy man, staring at her with a look of amazement.
“Judy?” he inquired, moving in closer. “Judith, Jud…” He stopped after the third call and embarrassment replaced his hopeful look. “You’re not Judith and I am frightening you,” he said, looking genuinely apologetic as he stared at her. “I’m sorry, lady. I just thought…I just thought that you were someone I know.”
He stepped back but kept on looking at her as Tricia replaced the hood that had fallen back during her slumber.
“Do you live here?” she asked.
He smiled warmly. “Yeah, for now. Listen, I’ve seen my share of everything down here but you’re something new, aren’t you? You’re too out of place to make any sense. Are you a cop? I know that sometimes they do undercover—”
“What if I were a cop? Would you go away then?” Tricia asked and the smile melted from the man’s tanned face.
He reminded her of Brad—her creator—during the years when he let his beard grow out. This stranger was taller and a lot bigger but the familiarity made her feel bad for being so hostile to him. The stranger did a mock salute and strolled away and Tricia stood up, dusted herself off, and looked around to see if anyone was paying any attention to her. She didn’t like that she stuck out. Sticking out meant unwanted attention and this was all the warning that she needed to leave the area.
She began walking until she gained the sidewalk, pulling her coat closer and placing one foot in front of the other. Before long she was back in the city and heading towards the dock, but she began to think that someone had been following her since the bridge.
This is absurd. A
t least that’s what she thought as an android experiencing paranoia.
She knew that something was off about her appearance when a woman gave her an extra wide berth as they passed each other on the sidewalk.
Of course she’d move. I fell asleep near a dump,
she thought and moved out of the way of a speeding car. She took her lapel between her fingers, pulled it close, and sniffed it. The sour funk of garbage made her flinch visibly and she wanted to cry for having sunk so low. She pulled it off and deposited it into a nearby garbage can and then smoothed her hair back with her fingers. She smelled her fingertips with a tiny prayer but all she smelled was strawberry-scented shampoo.
She walked to the docks, past a crowd of people, then found the pier and sat down. There was something about ships that put her at peace and she intended to spend the entire day watching them.
A large cruise ship entered the harbor and she wondered if it was possible to get on board.
I could stowaway, power myself down for a nap, and wake up in Alaska
, she thought. The idea of running away excited her and with no one to miss her she strongly considered it. She looked over at the people walking by the pier and tried to spot the androids using only her eyes. She found this to be futile, but she could track them with her mind and this made her smile with renewed hope.
All I would need to do is get a ticket
, she thought.
If I could get a ticket, I could board a ship and sail across the ocean
.
She got up from the dusty bench to walk again, taking in the smells and the brilliant blue sky. She reached up and removed a leaf from her hair, which reminded her that she slept beneath a bridge. She was again concerned about her appearance so she popped inside a coffee shop to locate the bathroom.
The shop was mostly empty and so was the bathroom so she went inside and locked the door. When she stood before the mirror and looked at herself, she was very disappointed with what she saw. Staring back at her was a woman who’d had a bad night, so she washed her face and straightened her blouse. When she was satisfied that she looked presentable, she exited the bathroom and resumed her walk through the city.
Tricia noticed that a man in black was watching her and she immediately felt threatened by his appearance. Her flats got moving as she jogged away from him but she could sense that he was following closely behind. She tried not to run into too many people but she was worried that he was a bounty hunter seeking android parts to sell. She picked up the pace until she was sprinting and then slipped between two buildings in hopes of losing him.