The Android Chronicles Book One: The Android Defense (31 page)

“How can you not be
surprised?” Mandelie said. “He and I have been mortal enemies
before this.”

“Sometimes we hate the
things we’re attracted to,” Trista said. “And you’re going through
a rough patch with Luke.”

“That’s not an excuse,”
Mandelie said.

“Yeah, but maybe the
difficulties you’re having with Luke is because of the undeniable
fact that he’s an android and you’re not. I’m not an expert at
things like this, but maybe your human-ness is finally acting out
and telling you to be with another human being. I’m not crazy about
Damian, but I can be objective and see a reason why there’s a whole
line of models waiting to date him.”

Mandelie buried her head in
her hands.

“Should I tell
Luke?”

“No,” Trista said
immediately.

“He’s not even here now,
anyway,” she added, with a touch of disgust. “Do you know when he’s
coming back?”

“He said as soon as he
could,” Mandelie said. “I don’t know what’s going to happen
anymore. I feel torn in two directions.”

“I think you’ll figure out
what to do,” Trista said. “But no one else can help you with
that.”

“Don’t tell Jake,” Mandelie
said. “He’d probably freak out. And not Brigite either. She’ll tell
Luke.”

“I won’t tell anyone,”
Trista said. “And I’m not judging you. I understand. I’m trying to
understand, at least.”

Brigite settled down on her
cot in the back room of the laboratory. Though she was a little bit
annoyed with Luke’s absence, she was not overly bothered by it, her
android sense of detachment filling in the blanks for her where
human emotion would have clouded with worry and doubt.

She looked down at the
clutter of objects thrown around her cot – her usual surrounding
mess of her stuffed animals, clothes, and scented candles - and
reached out for one of the candles, intending to light one for
while she was in her sleep state.

At the same time her cell
phone vibrated. She picked it up and saw a new message blinking
from Luke.

“Do not burn any candles in
the lab while I’m gone. I will come back as soon as I
can.”

“How does he always know
when I’m about to light a candle?” Brigite said aloud, in
annoyance.

Chapter 11.

Dabya paced up and down the
length of her bedroom, unable to sleep. Luke’s words about the
Society had shaken her. She knew that she trusted him and his grasp
of matters, but she also knew that it would not be easy for her to
turn Gustaf down. After all, she was – in his words – a pillar of
the society.

And pillars could never
bend. The consequences could be disastrous.

She was not yet concluded on
what she thought of Gustaf. He seemed to her amiable enough, even
if his demeanor was somewhat cold and rigid. But then again, so
were many other brilliant technicians in the Society.

She finally sat on her chair
in front of her vanity table. She picked up her phone and dialed a
number.

Gustaf picked up on the
other end.

“Your Highness,” he
said.

“Thank you very much for
your invitation, Mr. President,” Dabya said. “But I’m afraid I
cannot help you at this time. My commitments are strained as it
is.”

There was a brief silence on
the other end.

“What of your commitment to
the Society?” Gustaf said.

“You have my answer,” Dabya
said. “I wish you the best of luck.”

She hung up the phone
quickly.

Damian sat behind his desk
in his office on the top floor of the Adventis building. With
Carlie still recuperating on his couch, he was a little bit buried
by the work that waited for him, but he plunged into it with the
enthusiasm of someone who had been unable to leave his house only a
month before. His newfound energy was also helped by his occasional
thoughts of Mandelie.

His cell phone rang and he
picked up.

“Damian Foster.”

“I’m feeling a little
better,” Carlie said, her voice feeble. “I’m looking at my iPad now
and I just got an alert that the Innovators Summit a week from now
has been moved to San Diego. I’ll send it to you right now, as well
as a copy of your speech.”

“What are you doing?” Damian
said. “Put the iPad down and back away slowly.”

“Damian, a lot of your
emails come to me, in case you don’t remember. There’s the usual
congratulations on your recovery messages – achoo! – as well as a
bunch of important notes from Hewlett Packard, Microsoft, and
Boeing about your meetings with them. Achoo! Boeing wants to know
if you’ve received their design requests for the new robotic plane
you’ve contracted with them. And Senator Mitchell wants to grab
lunch with you whenever you’re free. Achoo!”

“You really are like my
third arm, aren’t you?” Damian said. “Fine, send everything to me
and I’ll answer them.”

“I’ve already answered some
of-”

“I’ll answer the rest of
them,” Damian said. “Seriously. You need to get back to the couch
and turn off that iPad. That’s a direct order.”

Carlie gasped as though
Damian had suggested pulling life support on a dying
person.

“I can’t turn it off! What
do you mean, turn it off?”

“Okay,” Damian said. “Calm
down. Just try to ignore it, and all the alerts and all the
messages coming from it, okay? Send everything to me. I need you on
your feet again as soon as possible.”

“Okay. Achoo!
Okay.”

Damian hung up and tried to
remember where he had left off. The intercom on his desk buzzed,
signaling an incoming call from the concierge on the first floor.
He pressed it.

“Yes?”

“Sorry to bother you, Mr.
Foster, but there’s a Mandelie Miles here to see you,” the
concierge said.

“Send her up with an access
card,” Damian said.

The intercom turned off.
Damian straightened his tie hastily and raked a hand through his
hair.

The elevator doors facing
his office opened slowly and Mandelie stepped out. She looked
extremely pretty in a casual shirt, jeans, and her hair loosely
tied in a braid, but her face was uncertain and a little
guarded.

Damian stood
automatically.

“I didn’t know you were
coming,” he said. “But I’m glad to see you.”

“I thought you’d be here,”
Mandelie said.

“I love this place now,”
Damian said. “Even more than I did before.”

He gestured to the couches
in the sitting area.

“Want to sit over
there?”

“Sure,” Mandelie
said.

Damian sat and Mandelie sat
beside him, facing him.

“You’re breaking up with me,
aren’t you?” Damian said, unable to suppress a slight
grin.

“No,” Mandelie said.
“No.”

She bit her lip and looked
away from him.

“I don’t even know why I’m
here, or what we’re doing,” she said.

“Listen,” Damian said. “It’s
too late to ask questions, why this and why that. What’s done is
done. I don’t regret it at all. I loved it. The question now is, do
you want it to continue?”

“It’s easy for you to do
things like this,” Mandelie said. “It’s not that easy for
me.”

“Why?” Damian said, still
with a slight smile. “Because I’m a hopeless sinner and you’re a
blameless angel?”

“Because I’m dating Luke,”
Mandelie said. “Because I can’t do this to him, no matter what I
feel for you.”

“What do you feel for me?”
Damian said, looking at her intently.

“I don’t know. I used to
know, before,” Mandelie said. “I was sure I hated you. Now, I
…”

She broke off and drew in
her breath.

Damian leaned into her and
kissed her. Mandelie did not pull away. She kissed him back, her
defenses falling from her.

“I have a conference call in
five minutes,” Damian said, breaking off the kiss after a few
moments with difficulty. He exhaled. “I’d postpone it, but it’s
with Boeing and they don’t like being postponed. Even if their
flights do.”

“I need to go back to the
lab,” Mandelie said. “I can’t stay.”

“Can you have dinner with me
tonight?” Damian said. “At my place.”

Mandelie hesitated. She
thought of the endless past parade of women who must have passed
through Damien’s bedroom.

“No,” she said. “Come to my
place. Call me before you do.”

“Of course,” Damian
said.

Gustaf Jorg, Pierre Alsouvi,
and the vice president of the Society, a Dutch computer programmer
named Mikael Graus were gathered around a table in the kitchen of
Gustaf’s modest, but architecturally pleasing house in Stockholm.
They were poring over blueprints for the new android construction
complex of Gustaf’s vision.

“I like it,” Pierre said.
“The building is soundly constructed and affords plenty of space
for the storage of thousands of androids. Perhaps even tens of
thousands.”

“I want it to hold a
capacity of hundreds of thousands,” Gustaf said.

Pierre nodded, with a look
of respect. He was somewhat in awe of Gustaf’s abilities, and the
awe had not diminished over the many years of their
friendship.

“Do we have enough funds?”
Gustaf said.

“More than enough,” Mikael
said. “Donations are pouring in from all corners of the globe from
members eager to support you. Your reputation has clearly won most
of the Society over. We are all eager to forget Lataun.”

“Lataun had noble
intentions,” Gustaf said. “His intention was, of course, to bring
about the future our Society envisions. His mistake was that he did
not build his android army himself, but instead placed it into the
hands of an outsider.”

“That outsider was his son,”
Pierre said.

“Whoever he was, Lataun gave
up control and lost it, as a result,” Gustaf said. “That will not
be my mistake.”

“Gustaf, who is that
person?” Mikael said, catching a glimpse of Madrick Castleshank
stomping past the kitchen.

“Pay no attention to him,”
Gustaf said. “He is my assistant, but I am getting a little tired
of his louche ways. I may get rid of him soon and find a new
one.”

Chapter 12.

The endless green grounds
behind Schoenbrunn Palace included a park filled with dense trees
and gently rolling hills. It was filled with horse riding paths and
walking trails and views of the palace from all sides of
it.

Dabya and Luke rode through
the park on horses, Luke ably maintaining his seat on his horse
despite never having ridden one before. Dabya was an accomplished
equestrian and looked relaxed and carefree on her horse.

“You’re doing splendidly,”
she said to Luke. “You have a natural seat.”

“I’m not entirely sure what
that means, but thank you,” Luke said.

A mile behind them Niklaus
Schroder and another bodyguard followed in a dark SUV.

Dabya waited until Luke drew
up alongside of her before flashing him a teasing smile.

“Would you like to race?
From here to that fallen tree in the distance. Go!”

Without waiting for Luke to
assent Dabya and her horse took off in a thunderous cloud. Luke and
his horse raced after them.

The two of them galloped
through the forest as the SUV roared behind them in pursuit to keep
them in sight.

Finally Dabya arrived at the
fallen tree moments before Luke did. She clapped loudly as he
arrived.

“That was not totally fair,”
Luke said. “You did not count to three. I believe that is the usual
human practice.”

Dabya laughed.

Luke got down from his horse
and swung her down. The two of them sat on the fallen tree
trunk.

“I turned down Gustaf’s
invitation,” Dabya said.

“I know,” Luke
said.

Dabya looked at him with
amused eyes.

“Were you listening
again?”

“No,” Luke said. “That was a
singular occurrence. I would not infringe on your privacy unless
you were in danger. But I knew you would turn it down because you
are intelligent.”

“Well,” Dabya said, taking a
sip from her bottle of water. “I trust you. But now that you have
convinced me to defy the Society’s new leader, you must not desert
me now. I need you by my side.”

She laughed, but her eyes
were serious.

“I won’t leave,” Luke
said.

“But there is one thing I am
missing if I am not a part of Gustaf’s venture, Luke,” Dabya said.
“That proximity to his actions. The reason why you came
here.”

Luke looked straight
ahead.

“I had thought of it,” he
said. “But I could not ask you to play such a dangerous role. The
role of a spy. It’s more dangerous than refusing to
participate.”