The Phoenix Code (12 page)

He came back to the chair. "We need to defuse his resentment. The problem is, we expect human reactions. And he's not human."

"I don't—Raj, look out!"

He didn't ask questions, just dropped into a crouch with her—barely in time to avoid a robot arm swinging down from the ceiling. Huge and jointed, bristling with equipment, it passed through the area where Raj had been standing. Megan glanced up—

And saw Ander.

He was standing on the catwalk, speaking into a palmtop. Dressed in Raj's blue jeans and sweater, with gold curls falling into his face, he looked absurdly innocent. He must have programmed the robot arms to respond to some signal. Somehow he had also jimmied the door behind him, making it close on his harried LP guard. It hadn't hurt the LP, which was already working free, but it added to Megan's annoyance with the android's misbehavior.

"Ander, stop it!" she called. "You'll hurt someone."

"That's the point," Raj said. "Me, specifically."

"At least we got him here."

Raj dodged to avoid being swiped by a second robot arm, a small one. It thunked into the console and came to a vibrating stop, its clawed hand broken at the joint. An alarm blared and red lights flared along the arm.

"Ander!" Megan stood up. "I want you to stop."

"What are you two saying about me?" Ander demanded.

Raj rose to his feet. "Come down and we'll talk."

"No!"

"Fine," Megan said. "We'll take care of it without you." She tried to enter a command at the console, but BioSyn refused her input. Undeterred, she logged onto BioShadow, a hidden server she had set up to deal with anomalous situations, which certainly included rapscallion androids.

Raj went to work on the other end of the console. Up on the catwalk, Ander frowned, then spoke into his palmtop. Megan soon figured out why; he was trying to use BioSyn to keep them out of BioShadow. They easily evaded his attempts. Then she sent the LPs after him. Two rolled under the catwalk and a third boarded the elevator. With a hum, the car started to rise.

"Wait." Raj glanced up. "Have them hold off."

"Why?"

"They're stronger than Ander. If they force him down here, it could damage him. Even if they don't, it would humiliate him to have his first jab at independence quashed that way." Dryly he added, "Though he does make it tempting."

"I'll tell them to play nice." Megan directed the LPs to guard Ander but otherwise leave him alone, unless he endangered anyone or tried to damage more equipment—in which case they were welcome to haul him down.

The LPs under the catwalk stood together, exchanging data like a duo of gossiping tin cans. The LP in the doorway behind Ander finally freed itself, but it stayed put. The one on the elevator had reached the catwalk and was rolling toward Ander. It stopped about ten feet away. Ander glowered and waved his hand as if to shoo it off the catwalk. It just blinked its lights at him, orange for a low-level alert.

"Ander," Raj said. "We want you to come down."

He glared at them. "No. You'll turn me off."

"And if I promise we won't?" Megan asked.

"I don't believe you."

"Don't promise him," Raj said in a low voice. "We may have to break our word. We have to get him out of BioSyn."

Suddenly robot arms two and six detached from their ceiling cradles and swung through the lab, barely avoiding each other. When they moved apart, arm three hurtled between them like a gnarled pendulum. The other two arms swung back and smashed together with a resounding crash. As Megan swore, alarms shrilled and red lights flashed along both limbs. The LPs that were supposed to keep Ander from misbehaving stood placidly in place, orange lights aglow.

"For crying out loud," Megan said. "How does he do that?" She and Raj delved deeper into BioShadow, bringing up programs she had hidden for emergencies.

"Hey!" Ander shook a yellow strut of the catwalk. "What are you two doing?"

Megan frowned. "You come down here."

"Hell, no."

"And watch your language!"

"Tell that to Dr. Brooding down there."

"Is that supposed to be me?" Raj muttered.

The robot arms kept swinging. Not one LP had moved. It irked Megan that Ander had become so adept at finagling their systems. However, she and Raj had many more years of finagling experience, and they soon stopped the arms. The three giant limbs hung around the chair glowing with red and orange lights like a deranged Christmas tree.

Ander leaned over the rail. "Leave it alone!"

"Ander, be careful."
His precarious position terrified Megan. Coordination and balance were his weakest traits.

She had no idea whether he tried to pull back and slipped, or tried to provoke her and misjudged. The result was the same: he lost his balance, throwing his arms out in a futile attempt to grab the strut. His palmtop flew out of his hand and sailed through the air.

With a cry, Ander plunged over the rail.
 

"No!"
Megan shouted. Ander's body dropped behind the cluster of robot arms, followed by a sickening thud. She and Raj ran around the quiescent limbs and skidded to a stop.

Ander lay in a heap. His skeleton was less brittle than bone; instead of cracking, it had bent. His right leg had wrenched backward at the knee in a right angle relative to his thigh, and his right arm had twisted at the elbow until it made a sharp angle with his upper arm. His right hand had broken halfway off his wrist. Unlike a human, who probably would have died from such a fall, he was looking straight at them.

"God, no." Megan knelt next to him.

As Raj stepped toward him, Ander cried, "No!" He held out his good hand as if to protect himself. "Don't turn me off!"

Raj scowled at him. "You do exactly what Megan tells you. Misbehave once, just once, and you are off. Got it?"

"I would never hurt Megan."

"Good. Because if you do, you're one down droid." Raj went to the console and switched off the alarms. The sudden silence came like a breath of relief.

Megan laid her hand on Ander's injured arm, trying to judge the damage. He looked up at her—and a tear slid out of his eye.

"Oh, Ander," she murmured.

"It's crocodile tears," Raj said. "I designed the prototype. His ducts condense liquid out of the coolant for his hydraulics."

"Quit talking about me like I'm not here," Ander said. "I cry when I fucking feel like it, asshole."

"Keep up with that filthy mouth in front of Megan," Raj told him, "and I'll clean it out with your crocodile coolant."

"Go to hell."

"Ander, stop." Megan couldn't help but react to Ander as if he were an injured human being, one whose well-being mattered a great deal to her. Using Tycho, she studied his injuries. "I don't understand why you did this. You must have known your plan would backfire."

"Yes, I calculated that probability," he said. "But I calculated a higher one that if you slept with me, you would transfer your interest from
him
to me."

"For crying out loud," Raj said.

Megan spoke to Ander in a mild voice. "You calculated wrong. I would have been furious." She slowly straightened his arm, monitoring the process with Tycho. She hoped to put his limbs enough in line so they could move him to the chair without causing further internal damage. She tried not to imagine what Raj must be thinking.
Transfer your interest from him to me.
Nothing like being blunt. She might as well have shouted,
I want you, Raj!

"Megan, are you all right?" Raj asked.

She began working on Ander's leg. "Yes. Fine."

"Your face is the color of your hair."

"It's nothing. Really." She couldn't look at him.

He spoke softly. "You're always so cool, like a long, tall drink. I thought you resented my being here."

She looked up at him. "Raj, no. I was glad when you came."

"I don't put people at ease." He cleared his throat. "Especially people that, uh, I want to, well—to know better."

Megan felt as if she were melting. "You do just fine."

"Oh, please," Ander said. "If this gets any more sentimental I'm going to puke."

"That would be a feat," Raj said, "considering that your plumbing isn't set up for that response."

Ander didn't deign to answer. His arms lay straighter now, though his hand was still broken back at a sharp angle from his wrist. It disturbed Megan to see him that way. She knew he felt no pain, but he looked as if he should be in agony.

Ander was watching her face. "I'm not a job to you anymore. You want me. Admit it."

"You mean a lot to me. But not in that way. I kissed you because I thought you were Raj."

"Except I wasn't." He lifted a lock of her hair with his good hand. "What you enjoyed—that was me. Not him."

She pulled her hair away. "No, Ander."

"You can't push a person into wanting you," Raj said. "It doesn't work that way."

"You'd know, wouldn't you?" Ander said.

Raj scowled but said nothing.

"You're a hypocrite," Ander said. "You can seduce your boss, but it's wrong if I try?"

Raj started to respond, then stopped. Megan could tell he was holding back. It would do no good if this argument fell apart in anger. Ander didn't have the capacity to deal with the emotions he was stirring up. If they weren't careful, they could harm him with words they would later regret.

"I think we can move him now," she said.

Ander stiffened as Raj crouched next to him. Megan had intended to help, but Raj picked up the android easily in his arms. Seeing him use such care affected Megan deeply. She had thought Raj would be curt or stiff, yet he treated Ander more like an injured son than a threat.

Although Ander weighed as much as a human man, Raj showed no sign of strain. Megan wondered why he spent so much time developing his muscles. Although he avoided her in the gym, the room's activity log indicated he worked out with weights every day. It seemed an odd hobby for a reclusive genius, though she had no good reason for why she thought so. She certainly appreciated the results.

Raj carried Ander to the chair and gently set him down. Ander refused to look at him, but he sank into the cushioned seat with a convincing simulation of relief.

Using BioShadow, Megan verified that Ander's sabotage hadn't damaged the chair. Then she did the prep for his operation. Humming like a distant bee swarm, the chair unfolded into a table. Ander lay on his back watching her, a bead of sweat on his temple.

"Are you going to turn me off while you work?" he asked.

"Do you want me to?"

He tensed. "No."

"Then I won't."

Raj was standing across the chair at the other console. Neither he nor Megan spoke as they removed Ander's clothes. She flushed at the sight of Ander's nude body. It had never affected her before, but after tonight she would never see him in the same way again.

When Megan pressed a crease behind Ander's ear, a small disk of skin lifted up from his navel, revealing a socket. "Arm two," she said. A grinding noise came from behind her, like a protest. Turning, she saw a broken robot arm hanging in the air. "Arm four," she amended. "Connect to torso. Full body scan."

Arm four came down from the ceiling and plugged into Ander's abdomen. Holos appeared above her console with views of his body. Several fins that exchanged air in his chest cavity had broken and the bellows that moved his chest had collapsed. His microfusion reactor and its shielding showed no damage; both were meant to last for centuries even if his body exploded. The circulatory system that cooled his systems had several breaks, and its pump had a twisted valve. A conduit that carried nutrients to his skin had burst. Both his lubricant reservoir and the sinus reservoir that produced his tears, sweat, and saliva had sprung leaks. The sperm unit in his testes was fine, as was his food reservoir and waste-removal system. Ragged gashes marred his synthetic muscles and the nanofilaments that sheathed them. His skeleton showed many dents and twists, and major damage in the leg and arm. His wrist had nearly snapped off. Had he been flesh and blood, he would have died the moment he hit the floor.

Megan touched his arm. "We'll make you better."

Although Ander nodded, his face showed fear. It wasn't a vivid emotion; he still had trouble with his expressions. But they had become more mobile in the past weeks.

BioSyn spoke. "Diagnostics complete."

"Can we open him up?" Raj asked. Similar holos flickered on his console.

"It will cause more damage to his filaments," BioSyn said.

Megan rubbed her eyes. It was no picnic fixing filaments made of threads with widths no greater than a molecule. To some extent the tubes were self-repairing; when disrupted, dangling bonds reattached to keep their chemical structure inert. However, the tubes couldn't reproduce themselves; although chemists had been building nano-tubes since the late twentieth century, they hadn't yet reached the point where the nanotech self-replicated with any reliability. However, Ander's internal systems could make some rudimentary repairs on a macroscopic level. Megan and Raj could help by inserting smart-wires into Ander's sockets and injecting him with nanobots that catalyzed selected reactions.

In a sense, they were also doing brain surgery. Some of Ander's nanotubes acted as a computer. The full range of electronic devices could be built with them. They were far smaller than silicon transistors on integrated chips, more durable, and better able to deal with heat, which meant they could be formed into three-dimensional arrays more easily than silicon devices. As a result, the filaments distributed Ander's brain throughout his body. It made him less vulnerable to attack, since he had no central location where his brain could be destroyed, but it meant they had to take extra care with the filaments.

"BioSyn," Megan said. "How much damage can Ander fix himself?"

"About twenty-five percent. I can also do some work through his sockets."

"All right," Raj said. "We'll start with bots and wires."

"No!" Ander pushed up on his elbows.

"What's wrong?" Megan asked.