Devil in the Device

by Lora Beth Johnson

  Skilla pursed her lips, giving him one last glare before leaving. Xana followed quickish behind.

  “Angels?” Andra asked, as the door slid shut.

  Zhade blinked. “Huh?”

  “Skilla said something about getting the angels under control.”

  “Oh, that was null.” He waved away the comment, sitting in the seat farthest from Andra, and kicking his feet up on the table. “Seeya, she imagines she’s better at magic than I am, marah? But we for true reck who the better sorcer is.” He winked, and something bout it felt forced.

  Andra didn’t blush as she usualish did.

  “Soze . . .” he said, trying to sound casual, “I heard you went adesert after all.”

  Andra swallowed. She was so pale.

  He cleared his throat. “Find anything? The lake? Anything bout my mam?”

  If his mam was alive, maybe she’d left clues on how to find her.

  Andra watched him for a moment before shaking her head. Zhade’s heart sank for two reasons. She seemed full bars uncomfortistic. Was she so prepped to be rid of him?

  “Soze . . .” He cocked his thumb toward the door. “Should I go? Or was there something from the meeting you wanted to convo?”

  “Uh . . . no. It was just . . .” She cleared her throat, not meeting his eye. “Same old boring things as usual. Rocket. Refugees, et cetera.” She pressed her lips together in some bastardization of a smile.

  Zhade returned it. He recked he should tell her bout the angels, bout Meta and Tsurina. But the way she was looking at him—or not looking at him—like she wanted the convo to end . . . Like she pitied him. For what? For still being in love with her?

  He cleared his throat and pressed his chair back, standing awkwardish. She stood too, holding the table between them.

  Zhade bit the inside of his cheek. “I spoze . . . I won’t waste any more of your time. I’m certz you have better things to do than to convo me.”

  Pain flashed across Andra’s face, and Zhade immediateish regretted his words. He hadn’t purposed for it to sound so bitter, hadn’t purposed it as a jab. He had to get out of here before he said something even worse. He turned to go.

  “Wait,” Andra said. She was suddenish behind him, turning him round, her small hand on his shoulder.

  He met her eyes. They were wide and wet with tears. Had he hurt her? Had he been that cruel? Hadn’t she wanted him gone?

  “Andromeda, what’s wrong? Are you evens? Sorries, I shouldn’t have snapped.” He took her face in his hands.

  She shook her head, not looking away, studying his face like she was searching for something. “I—” she trailed off.

  She was so close. Closer than she’d been in so long. She leaned forward. So did he. They were sharing the same air, the same breath.

  It sole took the smallest movement, and their lips were touching.

  TWENTY

  00110010 00110000

  Andra gasped, and Zhade took it as invitation. He deepened the kiss but gently, hands framing her face. Andra bunched his shirt in her fist, dragging the rest of him closer, closer.

  There was no conscious thought, just instinct. This physical longing she could have for someone else: she wanted to pick it apart and analyze it. But her brain was too foggy, her body too wanting, to even consider if this was a good idea or what she was going to do next, or what the consequences would be for a human and an AI—

  A dull ache began to pound at her temple, the icy feeling creeping up her spine. She tried to ignore it, just kissed Zhade harder.

  Destroy him.

  No, she told the voice. It didn’t get to interrupt this moment.

  Yes, it demanded. Destroy him.

  No, I won’t!

  Zhade’s kisses felt farther and farther away. Her head was filled with static, her muscles tense. The voice shrunk to no more than a whisper.

  You already have.

  Andra pushed Zhade away and scrambled back.

  At some point, he’d lost his shirt, and hers was open, the top button on her pants undone. Zhade’s eyes were glazed, lips swollen. Andra had just stared into this face—Maret’s face—hours ago. It looked so different with Zhade’s expression of regret.

  He stepped back. “Sorries.” He swallowed. “I’m sorry. I don’t reck what I was imagining.”

  No, he didn’t. He knew she was artificial. Knew she wasn’t human.

  She didn’t want to see the shame pass over his face. Didn’t want to watch him realize what he’d almost done, to come to terms with it while she was still there. She pulled her shirt together and fled.

  * * *

  Andra paced outside of the Icebox, her stomach roiling with nausea. What had she just let herself do? She’d given in to her own desires without any thoughts of the consequences. Zhade must be disgusted by her. The way she’d run after him, kissed him. As though she wasn’t a thing, as though she were a human that could want things and act upon them.

  And now, not only was she not human, she wasn’t even a very good AI.

  She had been making out with Zhade hours after she’d almost killed someone.

  Might still kill someone.

  Who knew if Ophele would wake up from her coma? Or maybe she’d already died. Andra was too scared to go back in the Icebox to check.

  How could she face her father again? Her siblings?

  Not to mention, she’d captured someone and put him in a cell, but only after letting him hurt Rashmi, the only other being like her in existence.

  Everything was falling apart, and Andra had never felt so alone.

  The door to the Icebox hissed open, and Andra froze, preparing an explanation, but it was only Cruz.

  “There you are,” he whispered, as though they were in a library, or a graveyard. “I’ve been looking everywhere for you. Your family is worried.”

  Andra snorted. “I’m sure.”

  Cruz slipped his hands into his pockets boyishly. “It’s good you got out of there. Raj has totally forgotten you even exist. He’s mainly frustrated with me.”

  “And Ophele?”

  Cruz deflated. “Still in a coma.”

  Andra winced. The lights of the annex were too bright.

  She started pacing. “I don’t know why it didn’t work. Griffin told me there was no way I could mess it up. She said the program was ready to go, I just had to start it and let my AI brain do the rest.”

  Cruz hmm’d and stroked his nonexistent beard. “I think I have an idea. Can we go to your lab?”

  * * *

  Andra really needed to clean her room if she was going to keep having people over. She cleared the table of the snacks she’d put out for Xana and Skilla during their meeting. Not that it had been much of a meeting. It was mostly Xana giving Skilla puppy-dog eyes and Skilla refusing to help Andra gather supplies for the colonists. They’d ended early, since Lilibet had been stitching more blankets and Rashmi was in her room dealing with the impact of Maret’s hurtful words. Then Zhade had shown up. At least he was gone now. She didn’t think she could face him ever again.

  Cruz stepped gingerly over the piles of discarded tech, books, and clothes until he reached Andra’s work’station. He tapped the mini’dome on the desk, sending the pocket inside into a frenzy, then chuckled to himself and sat in Andra’s ’chair.

  “Can I see the . . . What did you call it? The anomalizer?”

  Andra handed it to him. He jacked it into the work’station, bringing up lines of code on the holo’display. It filled the entire screen, and he scrolled through it, humming to himself.

  “This is . . . way beyond me. I mean, that’s no surprise, it was created by Alberta fucking Griffin. Or . . .” He shot Andra a look. “. . . her clone or whatever.”

  “Do you think she made a mistake in the code?”

  He scoffed. “I
doubt it. Probably just user error . . .” He continued scanning, then realized what he’d said. He looked up at Andra apologetically. “I mean, user error in that the two of—both of us . . . we were mistaken in how to use—not that you were using it wrong, just that . . . how we were using it wasn’t . . . correct.”

  Andra rolled her eyes. “Nice save, nerd.”

  Cruz smiled sheepishly, and a little bit of Andra melted.

  “Wait.” He turned back to the code. “I wonder . . .” He typed some keystrokes and then brought up another holo’display. This one held more code.

  “What’s that?” Andra asked.

  “It’s the code for the Blackout.”

  Andra gasped. “What? You just . . . have access to that?”

  Cruz shrugged. “Honestly, it’s not that hard to find, especially considering we’re networked into the Vaults.”

  The Blackout was the most dangerous ’implant hack of the fifties. It took over every connection between the ’implant and the body and sporadically shut down various functions. People wouldn’t even know they had it, then bam! They couldn’t breathe. Or their heart stopped. Or they lost their sight. At least, so they thought. The hack couldn’t actually control bodily functions, but it could manipulate the connections between the ’implant and neural pathways to make the user think they were no longer breathing or hearing or walking.

  It was a nightmare, and a complicated hack that took years to completely eradicate. It had almost ended the neural’implant program.

  “Why are you looking at it?”

  Cruz gave Andra his most dazzling smile, gesturing between the two codes. “Because this is where Griffin went wrong. The Blackout code was highly invasive. Even though it only appeared to attack a single perception or neural function, it actually invaded every part of the ’implant with sleeper code that would randomly trigger. That’s why it took so long to clear the hack, because short of wiping the entire ’implant, it’s nearly impossible to remove the code.”

  “What does that have to do with the program in the anomalizer?”

  Cruz’s face was lit by the ’displays. “Griffin used the base code from the Blackout. It was a shortcut to make sure that the program was as invasive as possible. It has to mask every single nano in the ’implant for it to be effective. The best way to do that is through code like this.”

  Andra pulled up a chair and sat. “So what happened? Did she leave in too much of the Blackout code? Did the virus trigger in Ophele’s ’implant, and now she thinks she’s in a coma?”

  Cruz leaned back, stretching his arms behind his head. “No, the problem isn’t in the anomalizer code, it’s in the ’implant code.”

  “How?”

  Cruz ruffled his hair. “After the biggest Blackout scare in . . . fifty-six? Seven? . . . amateur coders came up with a patch to block hacks like the Blackout. Griffin probably didn’t consider it, because it wasn’t LAC-sanctioned code. I don’t know why LAC didn’t create their own patch . . . probably making too much money from people needing to wipe and replace their ’implants. But people got in the habit of downloading the amateur patches as a sort of malware protection. Even LAC scientists started doing it. Hell, I have a patch. Your mom probably even gave them to your siblings.”

  Andra’s stomach somersaulted at the thought of her mom. Her dead mom. Caring for her sister and brother. Obviously, Andra wouldn’t have needed a patch, because she didn’t have an ’implant. She was the ’implant. But still.

  “So Ophele probably had a patch, and what . . . it freaked out? How do we get around it?”

  Cruz sat forward, excitement on his face. “That’s the thing. You don’t get around it. It’s not really blocking anything. Neural’implants are extremely complex pieces of tech. I mean, children are budded with them as infants, and the ’implant grows with them as their brain grows. Some of the ’implants we’re seeing now that were only budded a few years ago are so complex, even the people who initially programmed them don’t understand how they work anymore. So patches and upgrades have to take that into consideration, coding to keep not only the ’implant but the brain in mind.”

  Andra’s mind was spinning. She was sentient technology in an organic body, and ’implanted humans were sentient organic life with technology woven into their very brains. Was she made in their image, or were they remaking themselves in hers?

  “Don’t you see?” Cruz said. “The patches to prevent the Blackout hack are built on this principle. They don’t actually block hacks, because sometimes, you want your ’implant to be upgraded. The problem is when your ’implant is altered without your consent. That’s where the brain comes in. The patch is aware of and takes into consideration emotional responses. If you’re just simply getting an upgrade, your emotional state is going to be welcoming. If someone is trying to do something to your ’implant you don’t want, your emotions are going to be distressed. The patch can tell based off the different brainwaves whether to attack the new code or accept it.”

  Andra pressed a hand to her forehead. “So . . . Ophele is in a coma . . . because she had a negative emotional reaction to the upgrade?”

  “Ophele is in a coma because the amateur patch she downloaded attacked an extremely invasive new code, and the . . . battle, if you will, between the two opposing codes overloaded her ’implant and, by extension, her brain.”

  “So, basically, Ophele is in a coma because she didn’t trust me.”

  Cruz grimaced. “She didn’t trust the code.”

  “Because I was the one installing it.”

  Cruz swiveled in the ergo’chair. “Andie. This is good! We know what the problem is, so that means we know how to fix it!”

  “How?” Andra threw up her hands. “By getting people to trust me? I’m not really a people person.”

  Cruz took one of her hands and squeezed it. “I trust you. You should try it on me.”

  She pulled her hand away. “What? No! You saw what happened to Ophele!” She got up and started pacing the room, nearly tripping over her dirty laundry.

  “And I explained why that happened. It’s not going to happen to me, because my emotional state is welcoming. I want this code. I love this code. I can’t wait to have immunity to . . .” He pointed at the pocket in the mini’dome. “. . . whatever that is.”

  Andra shook her head. This was absurd. How could this entire thing come down to trust? How could tech be so reliant on the emotional whims of humans?

  Cruz stood, taking both her hands in his and turning her to face him. “Please, Andra? I promise. This time it’ll work.”

  Andra went cold.

  Destroy.

  Yes, this could destroy him. But this was it. This was the only thing Andra was good for. Helping humanity. Following Griffin’s orders.

  “I guess . . .”

  “Great!” Cruz grinned and pulled his hair aside, exposing the tiny jack behind his ear. “Want to get started?”

  Andra blinked. “What, now?”

  “No time like the present. Or the future. Or whenever we are.”

  Andra couldn’t help but smile. “You’re so eager to be experimented on.”

  “Only by you.”

  Andra blushed as Cruz almost giddily unjacked the anomalizer from the work’station and handed it to Andra.

  He jostled himself in the ’chair to get comfortable before exposing the jack behind his ear to Andra once again. She approached and gently touched the tip of the anomalizer to the port but pulled away.

  “Are you sure?”

  Cruz grabbed the anomalizer out of her hand and slid it into his own port. He didn’t even flinch.

  “I don’t think this thing is letting go until the program is finished, so unless you want me walking around with it sticking out of my head, you might as well jack yourself in too.”

  Andra sighed and connected the anoma
lizer to a wire, then the wire to her reset tool. She took a deep breath before stabbing herself for the second time that day. She let out a small moan, tears smarting her eyes. The pain was quick, but it was intense.

  “Okay, Andie?” Cruz asked.

  She nodded, not confident enough in her voice to speak.

  “Let’s get this rolling,” he said, feeling for the switch on the anomalizer and flipping it on.

  Immediately, Andra felt like she was being drained again.

  “Hmm,” Cruz grunted. “This feels . . . weird.”

  “Bad?”

  He winced. “No, just . . . like I can’t sense my tech anymore. It’s—ah!”

  “Are you okay?” Andra took a step toward him.

  “It’s fine, it’s fine,” Cruz said through gritted teeth. “Just—ah! Kind of stings. I—”

  He seized, falling to the floor, bringing Andra with him, the connecting wire dragging Andra by the heart. Black spots flooded her vision, pain slicing through her. She shook her head, trying to focus.

  Cruz writhed next to her.

  “Cruz!” She grabbed his hand, and he squeezed so hard it hurt. A strained moan escaped his lips, the last gasp of a dying animal, and he fell still. The anomalizer slid free, landing on the floor with a heavy thunk.

  “Cruz? Cruz!”

  Andra shook him, but he lay inert on the cold eco’tiled floor.

  “Cruz!”

  She sent her nanos through his skin, into his blood, coursing up to his heart. It was beating just fine. He was breathing. So why wasn’t he responding?

  “Cruz?”

  His body started convulsing, his head twitching side to side, his eyes fluttering so all Andra could see were the whites.

  Then as quickly as it started, it stopped. Cruz’s eyes flashed open, clear, brown, and crinkled at the corners.

  “Did it work?” he croaked.

  Andra threw her arms around him. “Oh my god. Oh my god, I thought I’d killed you!”