Android: Golem (The Identity Trilogy) (25 page)

I grabbed the controls and put the hopper into motion, blowing through the hotel’s ground parking area and screaming into the air to fight for space amongst the other hoppers.

As the night sky filled my vision, I realized why the stars looked so strange. I wasn’t on Earth anymore.

Chapter Twenty

I came to fighting the links. That had never happened to me before. I’d never heard of any bioroid having a bad experience, but I knew that Haas-Bioroid would keep that kind of fact concealed. Usually I never lost consciousness or went anywhere outside the room, though.

I accessed my internal PAD and discovered that I had lost the last hour and twenty-three minutes. A full diagnostic on a bioroid normally took less than thirty minutes.

“Detective Drake, can you hear me?”

I recognized Jenny Crain’s voice and rolled my head toward her. She stood to my left. She looked concerned and a little mystified.

I felt mystified myself. “I can hear you.”

“What were you experiencing just now?”

Knowing that I wasn’t ready to discuss everything that was going on with me at that moment, I lied. “Only the diagnostic.”

She hesitated. “Was there anything different about this diagnostic?”

“Only that it required fifty-five more minutes than my last diagnostic. Was there a problem?” Putting the question back on someone to make them take the defensive was a trick Shelly had taught me.

“There was…
something.
We’re not sure what it was. You didn’t appear to be awake.”

“I don’t sleep.”

“We’re aware of that.”

“Did you do something to me that took me off-line?”

“No.” She hesitated before she answered, and I knew for certain that she didn’t know what was going on either. But that didn’t mean that her department head was equally in the dark. Somewhere in Haas-Bioroid, someone might have been inside my thoughts. They might have seen the chase on Mars.

I didn’t care for that idea, which was unusual. I was trained to be defensive when it came to self-preservation, not privacy. As a bioroid, I was an open book to anyone, even—to a degree—a perp I had taken into custody.

Had something in my experience pinged my self-preservation programming? I wasn’t sure, but that was the only explanation I could formulate that covered the
unsettled
sensation that cycled through my thoughts.

I tried to move but discovered the links still held my body. “Can I get up?”

She waited just long enough before answering that I knew she was talking to someone over an internal comm. “Of course.” She pressed the controls on the chair and the links slid out of my body.

The chair sat back up and I started to get out.

“We’d like to detain you just a moment further, please.”

“Why?”

“To get a second evaluation on your diagnostic. Dr. Kent would like to speak with you.”

“Of course.” I knew Dr. Kent. We’d met when I’d transitioned from a patrol officer at the NAPD to a full-fledged detective. He’d wanted to know how I felt about being partnered with a human. After the first year, he’d interviewed me again about the relationship I had with Shelly. “May I ask you a question?”

“I believe you already did.” Jenny Crain smiled at her own joke. “But, yes, you may ask another question.”

“Why did you come here?”

“Because I wanted to see more than just the red dust of Mars.”

“Terraforming is going on there. It’s not all red dust these days.”

Jenny Crain frowned. “Enough of it is still red dust, and there’s too much unrest.” She hesitated. “I lost two brothers to the fighting that’s going on there. My parents wanted me to have a different life.” A note of guilt entered her voice. “
I
wanted a different life. Now I have one and I enjoy it very much.”

“I apologize. I didn’t mean to pry.”

“It’s all right. At least we know your curiosity subroutines are running at peak efficiency.” Jenny Crain smiled. “Now, let’s see if we can figure out what caused this diagnostics glitch.”

*

For seventeen minutes, I sat without moving in a small room much like Exam Room 9, only this room had two real chairs and neither one had built-in links. The walls held thousands of images in no particular order. They were of people, places, things, colors, and expressions. Nonsensical images shared space with serious images.

At first I had scanned them, trying to ferret out the logic of the organization, then had realized I was wasting my time and returned to working my case files. There was no logic in the arrangements, but there were patterns that were inconsistent and more a process of randomness than any pure design.

I didn’t understand the latest episode I’d gone through. I still didn’t know who the woman was, and in these sequences, she didn’t seem to know she had been talking to me earlier, out of that sequence. Her behavior was very odd and unsettling. If I couldn’t know the answer to something, I at least liked to be able to frame the question correctly.

I had no clue what to ask other than who she was, who the men were that were chasing us, and what I was doing on Mars when I had never been there.

Even more strangely, the unsettled feeling I had about the whole experience seemed to be growing within me exponentially. By my eighteenth minute in the room, I discovered I could no longer sit still.

That had
never
happened.

I stood and paced, walking along the walls as if I were more closely examining the pictures pasted there. I didn’t have to do that because my vision was more than adequate for the task. But it was a cover for whoever was watching me, and I knew they would be watching. In Haas-Bioroid, they were always watching.

I had noticed occasions when walking had seemed to help Shelly. The effort didn’t make the troubled feeling inside me go away, though.

Twenty-four minutes into my wait, at a point when I was no longer certain I’d be able to stay inside the room, Dr. Kent entered. He was a moderately tall man with a rangy build and about five kilos overweight. He was balding and had grey hair; he was obviously not concerned about looking his age or possessing perfect features. He even wore glasses, though I suspected that was an affectation because there was no reason not to have his eyes adjusted. I thought that he liked himself enough that he wanted to be unique, which was unique to a Haas-Bioroid employee in and of itself.

I liked him for his fearlessness and his decision to be his own person. Given my existence as a bioroid, just a copy of personality indices stripped down to the bone, someone who embraced individuality intrigued me.

“Detective Drake.” Kent offered his hand.

I took the proffered hand and shook. I also took a biometric reading. Kent didn’t appear nervous in any way. “Good afternoon, Dr. Kent.”

“You remember me.”

“Of course. I’m programmed to remember everyone I meet.” My response was immediate, but I realized how false it was when I thought of the black-haired woman. I didn’t remember her since we’d woken in the hotel—on Mars—which I couldn’t remember going to.

“Would you prefer to sit, stand, or pace?” Kent settled himself into the room’s other chair.

“I don’t know. What are we going to do?”

“Just talk.”

“About what?”

“Anything you’d like to talk about.”

I waited long enough to be polite, then made my reply. “There’s nothing I’d like to talk about.”

Kent didn’t take umbrage at my declaration. “Don’t you want to talk about what happened during the diagnostic?”

“It took fifty-five minutes too long.”

Kent snorted. “The procedure might not have finished at all. You were fortunate.”

“How so?”

“If the diagnostic hadn’t completed, you would have been overwritten. Everything you’ve learned over the last seven years would have been wiped. You’d have been exactly as you were when you walked out of Haas-Bioroid the very first time.”

I felt more defensive, and that troubled me further. Having feelings like this was…uncomfortable and inconvenient. “Why?”

“That’s just how the program is set up. Either a diagnostic goes well, or it’s deemed fallible and overwritten.”

“I didn’t know that.”

“It’s not something the corp advertises.” Kent gazed at me speculatively. “How does knowing that now make you feel?”

“I don’t feel—”

“Yes, you do.”

I stared at him and felt suddenly
vulnerable
. I had never felt vulnerable before, even when dealing with someone with a large caliber weapon in his or her hand.

“Do you feel threatened?”

“Should I feel threatened?”

Kent smiled at me. “Are you going to insist on answering a question with a question, Detective Drake?”

“Is that a bad thing, Dr. Kent?”

“Questions are usually constructed to ferret out information. What are you trying to ferret out?”

I was suddenly reminded of the pleasure bioroids talking endlessly among themselves. Dr. Kent and I were both slaves to our inquisitive natures. I wasn’t human, so my patience was—theoretically—inexhaustible. Dr. Kent was stubborn. However, I discovered that the troubled feeling lurking inside me was continuing to grow.

Not only that, but Dr. Kent’s patience, and his time, weren’t infinite resources. He would grow tired or irritated, and then he might do something else. I recognized that the same way I recognized fatigue and exasperation in Lieutenant Ormond.

“I feel unsettled and that is curious to me.” I looked at Dr. Kent. “I would like to know why I feel unsettled.”

“Because you’re curious?”

“Yes. It is in my nature to seek answers until I am satisfied I have them.”

“And you’re not satisfied now?”

“No.”

“Very good.” Dr. Kent nodded and steepled his fingers. “Why do you think you feel
unsettled
?”

“My existence isn’t falling into acceptable parameters.”

“Tell me about that.”

“The diagnostic took fifty-five minutes too long. That is not an acceptable parameter. I wonder if there is more I don’t know about myself.”

“That concerns you.” Dr. Kent’s voice had gone flat, neutral.

“It does.”

“Why?”

That was easy to answer. “Humans depend on me to protect them. I need to be operating at peak efficiency so I can perform that function adequately.”

“Are you at peak efficiency?”

I quickly ran my own internal diagnostics. “According to my systems, I am.”

“But you continue to be unsettled
.
”

“I am. The diagnostic should not have taken so long.”

“Is that the only concern you have? This aberration of time?”

“Yes.” I never hesitated.

Dr. Kent took out his PAD and gazed at it for a moment. I saw lines of code reflect off his glasses. My vid acuity systems instantly reversed the information and allowed me to see it properly, but I still didn’t understand what I could see. Whatever the code meant to Dr. Kent, it meant nothing to me.

“To ease your mind somewhat, nothing untoward showed up on the diagnostic, Detective Drake, except for the lag time while the program ran through your system.”

“Do you know what caused that?”

For a moment, the man hesitated. His fingertips drummed against his leg and I knew he was considering his options. “We have noted anomalies within certain higher-end bioroids.”

I took the chair across from Dr. Kent at that point. I didn’t do so because I felt better about what was going on, but as an inducement to keep the man talking openly. I had seen Shelly use the technique on reluctant interviewees. Sometimes, she had done so to elicit painful memories from victims, sometimes to elicit confessions from perpetrators. The effort was a psychological process called mirroring.

Dr. Kent grinned. He leaned forward to place his elbows on his knees.

I leaned forward and placed my elbows on my knees. Too late, I discovered that he was merely toying with me. Shelly would have caught it immediately.

“You’re getting very good at intuitive learning, Detective Drake.”

“Thank you.” I didn’t alter my position. I had already been caught out.

“I suppose you learned this behavior at the police department.”

“From my partner.”

Dr. Kent nodded. “Tell me about her.”

“Tell me about the anomalies you have noted.”

“A trade?”

“If you insist.” I knew that he could simply order me to respond to his question and I would have had no choice within Haas-Bioroid. Curiously, I was able to disguise my experiences with the black-haired woman. The fact that I was able to maintain secrets was intriguing.

“Some of the higher-end bioroids, like yourself, have been becoming more self-aware.”

“That’s part of the design. We’re meant to integrate within human society to better supplement humanity. In order to do that, we must self-educate.”