The Android Chronicles Book One: The Android Defense (10 page)

“What do you have to say to
those protestors who are saying that the androids are going to
steal jobs from humans?” the host said.

Damian shrugged.

“I believe humans and
androids can find a way to benefit from each other mutually,” he
said. “We at Adventis are working on finding that way in the
shortest time possible, believe me.”

“Nicely done,” Carlie said
to herself. “Diplomatic.”

She glanced at
Lina.

“What will we do if it
starts raining?” she said.

“All of the androids are
weather-resistant,” Lina said. There was a superior tone in her
voice. “I’m surprised you don’t know that, Carlie.”

Carlie refrained from saying
a very rude word and returned her attention to her iPad.

Luke leaned back on the
couch in Damian’s office, watching the launch ceremony on the
television screen. He quickly became bored, however, with Damian’s
endless interview. He pressed a button on the remote control and
the screen turned to a video image.

It was a live camera feed of
the androids and the technicians in every room in Product
Development. Everything seemed to be going as usual. Technicians
were hovering around androids in each room, modifying them or
maintaining them. Then the camera image showed a picture of a room
which was splattered in blood.

Luke sat forward on the
couch.

He stared at the screen as
Captain Mercenare’s face came into view of the camera. He picked up
the broken body of one of the technicians and flung it against the
wall of the room. Then he left the room.

Moments later Luke heard a
loud, siren-like alarm ripping through the entire building. He
raced to Damian’s elevator and hit the button for the fortieth
floor.

The launch ceremony was
going tremendously well. The crowds had grown and now surged around
the stage with the androids and the stage for the musical
entertainment.

Carlie was standing next to
Damian who was deep in conversation with the mayor of Los Angeles.
She glanced down at her iPad and her eyes widened in horror at the
message that had flashed on the screen.

Chapter 24.

Captain Mercenare had left a
bloody trail behind him as he rampaged through Product Development.
He had killed three technicians and severely wounded five others.
Technicians as well as androids were screaming and running
desperately, trying to get out of his way.

“Martin, what are you
doing?” one of the X-droids named Bernessa shouted at him. “You’re
not programmed for this!”

“Shut up,” Captain Mercenare
snarled. He grabbed Bernessa, lifted her above his head, and then
smashed her against a wall.

Tony del Travio appeared
from a room. His eyes widened as he saw Captain Mercenare and he
looked around in a panic for a weapon. He grabbed a fire
extinguisher and spewed its white smoke all over the Super
Soldier.

It did not seem to affect
Captain Mercenare at all, but it blinded the other people in the
hallway, who were now unable to see around them.

Luke appeared at the end of
the hall and charged into the white smoke, pushing people out of
his way. He knelt over Bernessa’s broken body and looked around for
Captain Mercenare.

The white smoke cleared
slightly and Captain Mercenare caught sight of Luke.

“You,” he said. “I’m going
to break your head clean off your body.”

He ran at Luke with
surprising speed and knocked Luke completely off his feet. Luke
fell to the ground but before he landed Captain Mercenare grabbed
him and threw him down the entire length of the hallway.

Luke slid across the floor
before crashing into the wall. He lay for a moment, stunned, before
crawling to his feet.

He looked around but did not
see the Super Soldier anywhere. Then he sensed a shadow over his
head.

He threw himself out of the
way in time as Captain Mercenare dropped down from the ceiling onto
him. The Super Soldier grabbed his gun and began firing it at Luke
wildly.

Three of the bullets hit
Luke and buried themselves in his body and his internal circuits.
Luke was jolted but he grabbed a long piece of shattered glass and
stabbed it into Captain Mercenare’s eye, so hard that the end of
the piece of glass protruded out of the other side of his
head.

Captain Mercenare howled in
rage. Blinded in one eye, he grabbed Luke and smashed his head
against the wall.

The inside of Luke’s head
was exposed through a huge crack. Despite the tremendous damage,
Luke managed to find a spot on Captain Mercenare’s body that he
knew controlled his movements. He punched it, as hard as he
could.

The Super Soldier went limp
and slid to the ground.

Luke felt his vision fading
as the broken wires and circuits in his head took their toll on
him. He too, crumpled to the floor.

“I want this kept quiet,”
Damian said to Carlie as they sat in the limousine on their way
back to the Adventis building. “Until I talk to my Plan B
backers.”

“I’ll try to keep it as
quiet as I can,” Carlie said. “I’ve already sent out a memo to all
the workers in P.D.”

“How many fatalities and how
many injured?” Damian said.

“Three dead, five injured,”
Carlie said. “They’ve already been taken to a private hospital with
a confidentiality agreement. Luke was the one who took down Captain
Mercenare, Damian. He got his head smashed and the technicians are
trying to fix him up right now.”

“Took down Captain
Mercenare,” Damian repeated. “Did he destroy him?”

“No, he just immobilized
him,” Carlie said. “Captain Mercenare is still in working order,
but he’s been locked down in one of the rooms.”

“Keep him locked down,”
Damian said. “I don’t want anything done to him yet.”

“If word of this gets out,
Damian, it won’t be good for the launch,” Carlie said.

“Don’t tell me what I
already know,” Damian said. “But as long as my backers don’t mind
the fatalities, I’m fine with writing them off as necessary
sacrifices.”

Carlie looked a little
disgusted at his harsh words, but she said nothing.

Luke faded in and out of
consciousness as technicians worked on him in one of the rooms in
the white hallway, which was still strewn with the wreckage of
Captain Mercenare’s massacre.

Lina arrived a half hour
after Luke had been brought into one of the rooms, and immediately
took over the operation.

She and three others spent
four hours removing the bullets from his body, and then trying to
piece together his shattered skull as well as the intricate
circuits and wires within it.

“If only it was anything
other than his head,” Lina said. “This is the hardest thing I’ve
ever done.”

She was ferociously
examining the read-out of Luke’s imaging session, trying to follow
the visual image of his head when it had been in one
piece.

Damian and Carlie stood in
the room as well, Carlie looking distraught, Damian looking
absorbed in thought.

Finally Lina closed the
crack in Luke’s head with flesh glue and smoothed his hair over
it.

“Done,” she said, with a
look of relief. “I did the best I could. It’s fine now, everything
as it was before. He’ll have a slight scar on his head, but that’ll
be the extent of the damage.”

“Why won’t he wake up?”
Carlie said.

“His internal circuitry is
recovering,” Lina said. “Running a new current through him. Just
give him fifteen minutes.”

Chapter 25.

When Luke came to
consciousness he was lying on his own four-poster bed in his room.
Miranda was sitting in a chair beside him.

When she saw his eyes open
she jumped to her feet.

“Oh, sir, you’re
alright!”

“Am I?” Luke said. He shook
his head gingerly. He could not remember anything that had
happened.

“You’re a hero, sir,”
Miranda said. “You stopped Captain Mercenare from killing more
people and androids in the building.”

Luke’s memory drive was
suddenly flooded.

“I remember now,” he said.
He winced.

“Stay in bed,” Miranda said.
“Don’t move. I’ll bring you some water.”

She brought him a glass of
water and watched as Luke drank it.

Luke gave the glass back to
her and sank back onto the bed.

“I don’t understand why he
did that,” he said. “Captain Mercenare.”

“None of us do,” Miranda
said. “None of us androids at least. There was nothing in his
programming that would have caused him to lose control like
that.”

“I’m going to find out why
it happened,” Luke said. “Before it happens again.”

“Yes, but not now,” Miranda
said. “You really need to rest now, sir.”

Captain Mercenare was
standing upright against a wall in one of the Product Development
rooms, his body securely shackled with huge iron bolts. His head
dropped to his chest. He was still in a motionless state, but his
eyes moved back and forth and he was able to speak, with some
difficulty.

A team of five technicians
including Ledia and Joe stood in front of him, assessing him with
wariness.

“If I had my way I’d
disassemble him right now,” Joe said in a low voice to Ledia. His
arm had been broken in a struggle with Captain Mercenare and it was
in a cast.

Ledia said nothing. She was
shining an internal sensor up and down Captain Mercenare’s body,
trying to detect anything out of place in his interior
mechanisms.

“Well, I’m not seeing
anything I shouldn’t be seeing with this sensor. But we need to get
him to the imaging room. We’ll get a clearer picture that way,” she
said..

“We need to get him to an
incinerator, that’s what we need to do,” Joe said. The other
technicians looked as though they were in agreement with
him.

“Not without Damian’s say
so,” Ledia said.

“There’s money and people’s
lives on the line right now,” Joe said. “So we know which way
Damian will sway.”

“And what way will that be,
Joe?”

Joe started. Damian had come
into the room, accompanied by Carlie, without anyone
noticing.

“Um, well, I’m just
concerned, that’s all,” he said.

“And you think I’m not
concerned?” Damian said, folding his arms as he looked at the prone
Captain Mercenare.

“It’s not just your name all
over this, Damian,” Joe said. “It’s my name, Ledia’s name,
Melinda’s, and Lina’s. We’re all responsible for what
happened.”

“What happened?” Damian
said. “An android’s programming malfunctioned and he lost control
because of it. It’s a risk we all knew we were undertaking when we
started building androids. The product lines have launched, Joe.
The public – most of them, at least – is clamoring to get their
hands on their own androids. As far as I’m concerned – and that
means as far as any of you are concerned – nothing happened on this
floor today except for an unfortunate accident that has no chance
of affecting the average consumer.”

He eyed Joe.

“Got it?”

Joe looked away.

“Sure, Damian. Whatever you
say.”

“Come on, Carlie,” Damian
said, leaving the room.

Chapter 26.

“How are you doing with
keeping things quiet?” Damian said to Carlie as they walked down
the long white hallway, which was eerily deserted and quiet except
for a few janitorial crews.

“Um, not a word has gotten
out, I’m sure of it,” Carlie said. “None of the family members of
the injured technicians even know anything happened. Those techs in
the hospital are recovering. And the ones we lost … I’ve prepared a
memo to send out to their families saying they died from a routine
workplace accident. Caught themselves on the machinery, etc. All of
the other P.D. workers and know their job is on the line if they
breathe a single word of what happened to anyone. I’ve managed to
convince most of them that what they saw was just an android
malfunctioning and knocking down people in its way.”

“Good,” Damian said. “I want
to talk to Luke. Thank him for what he did. It could have been
worse if he didn’t stop Mercenare. Make sure everything is swept
under the rug, Carlie. Everything. And keep an eye on the sales
numbers coming out tomorrow.”

“You’ve got a call coming
in,” Carlie said, looking at her iPad. “It’s from V.I.P.
Confidential.”

“Let them know I’ll call
them from my office,” Damian said, quickening his pace.

Luke was preparing to try to
contact Mandelie one more time when he heard a knock on his door.
He went and opened it.

Brigite – dressed in a
see-through lavender cover-up over her red bikini, her bright blue
hair neatly brushed - was standing in front of him.